


Pets Aren't People

by Skalicia



Series: PAP [1]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Monsters Weren't Sealed Underground, Alternate Universe - Swapfell, Alternate Universe - Underfell, Alternate Universe - Underswap, But also dealing with some stuff, Doesn't actually care what you call her, Human 'workers', Human Pets, I also give summaries of those parts in the end notes so you can still understand what's going on, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Just shove them all into one universe and welcome to this mess, Monsters won the war, Not all monsters are great beings, Past Rape/Non-con, Reader Is Not Chara, Reader Is Not Frisk, Reader is pretty cool, Reader's got quite a backstory, Reader-Insert, Swapfell Papyrus - Freeform, Swapfell Sans, That's just what monsters call what are essentially slaves, The main four Papyruses show up in Chapter 5, Underfell Papyrus, Underfell Sans, Underswap Papyrus, Underswap Sans, Would you believe that I'm planning on some fluff?, but she's not willing to share it yet, lots of AUs, or really talk, reader has ptsd, reader is female, she needs help
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-30
Updated: 2018-12-12
Packaged: 2019-02-08 17:12:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 120,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12869226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skalicia/pseuds/Skalicia
Summary: This universe shouldn't exist, but it does. You shouldn't be in it, but you are. Life is just unpredictable like that, no matter how infuriating it can be.In a universe where monsters won the war, humans were hunted down and either killed or tamed. They were then split into the two classes of pets and workers. Workers do manual labour and pets are basically what they sound like. You've ended up here as a pet. Not by choice. Things happened and you ended up in an animal shelter where you've gained the attention of four short skeletons. You have no idea what they want from you, and you're definitely not sure you're ready, but life won't wait for you to be ready. It's time to see what they have in store for you.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this is my first AO3 story and I'm kind of excited. I've been working on this for a while so I've got a bit written ahead, but I don't want to post them too fast. This first chapter is kind of long, but I don't know how other chapters are going to compare.

You’re left hand ran through the silky, snow white fur of the pomeranian that had it’s head rested on your lap. It let out a soft noise as you rubbed it’s ear gently before moving to rub down it’s back again. Despite the fact that the shelter was having a bit of an adoption event, it was pretty quiet in the area where it was being held at the moment, which was nice since it let you sit out of the way with this dog - Toby, you had heard the workers call him - and not be bothered. In fact, you were sitting on the ground between two benches and leaning against the fountain that was in the middle of the animal shelter’s courtyard where a bunch of pets were left to roam around for patrons to interact with. There were even birds fluttering around since it was a closed in area in the middle of the building that was more like a glorified greenhouse than anything. There were fish in a pond that weren’t up for adoption, but the ones that were safely under some plexiglass, so the cats couldn’t try to fish them up, were fair game for patrons.

There were no patrons in the courtyard at the moment, all the better for your peace of mind. You didn’t want to have to deal with any more children that wanted to come up and play with your hair, only to tug too hard and end up taking strands with them when their parents pulled them away. Despite being human, you weren’t going as quickly as you thought you would as the ‘exotic’ or ‘rare’ type of pet you were. Maybe the price of adopting you was driving monsters away, or maybe it was the fact that you were pretty unresponsive, which parents wouldn’t want for a pet for their children.

A whine from Toby had you pulling out of your thoughts to look down at him. Apparently when you had pulled into your thoughts, you had stopped petting him and had started playing with the metal band around your wrist. A bracelet in appearance, but a tracking device and identifier in purpose. It was something the shelter had for human pets that came under its custody apparently, though you had to wonder how often that was. Besides you, you couldn’t really think of human pets somehow disappearing from their owners. Even the humans that were slaves used for tasks monsters didn’t want to perform - though they were called workers by monsters - wouldn’t leave their masters or place of work without being told too. While you couldn’t understand their loyalty since most of them seemed content with how things were, you knew you wouldn’t be trying to leave either, if only because of the terrors you had gone through with your last owner. The thought of them left a foul taste in your mouth, so to distract yourself you watched as a bunny hopped closer to a cat that was trying to take a nap while you went over the weirder adoptions you’ve seen during your time in the shelter. Monsters that were like animals adopting pets that were the same kind of animal they were was probably the strangest. Like that one young bunny lady who walked her brother into the courtyard on a leash and then the two left with the young rabbit monster carrying a bunny. At first you hadn’t been sure which you had found stranger, the bunny with the bunny monsters, or the fact that the younger monster was on a leash. After having seen a few similar things with a cat monster adopting a cat, and a pair of dog monsters adopting a dog, you’d have to say that the young monster on the leash is probably the weirdest part.

Chiming of small bells came from a set of doors off to your right, the glass ones that lead to the main foyer of the shelter. It was getting later into the afternoon on a Sunday, so you were a bit surprised at the fact that there was somebody coming in. Not like it mattered to you anymore at this point. You were just waiting for the day to end and for you to be shoved back into that room that was empty except for a bland bed with a metal frame and a small end table. It sucked, but for as long as you were stuck here, that would be your room, where you’d be confined for all of your time except while this event went on. You weren’t even sure when it ended, which made you feel a little bad because you’d grown quite attached to Toby during the past day or so that the event had been going on. Plus it was nice to be out of that small white room for a change. On the bright side, no random children ever ran up to get in your face when you were in your room.

Toby giving an unsure growl had you breaking out of your thoughts once more. A squeal of surprise quickly being pulled from you as soon as you realized that there was somebody with their face right in yours. Eye sockets that would be empty if not for the stars that must be made with magic stared at you, and you took a shaky breath as you pressed back into the fountain behind you. The face pulled away a bit and you finally were able to think to be able to identify what kind of monster this was. A skeleton. You had just had a very humanoid skeleton press their face close to yours. Now that they had pulled back a bit, you could calm down, which helped Toby calm by your side as well, though he gave another weak growl to try and ward the skeleton away from you. In the meantime, you took in their appearance. It was kind of child like with the bright blue bandana around their neck and some sort of costume like armour, which had you internally groan. You were so done dealing with kids, but then you’re mind paused as you looked them over again and your stomach knotted. While it was hard to properly take them all in at this angle, you were sure you knew who this was.

“hey blue, what’ve you found?” Your eyes flickered from the skeleton in front of you to the owner of the lazy drawl. Another skeleton stood within your line of sight and was looking at you with intrigue. Not only that, but the two looked extremely similar while still having obvious differences. Your gaze paused on the blue coat and you felt your heart leaping up into your throat. A part of you wanted to cry out and run over to hug the skeleton, but this was a stranger, no matter how they looked or what they wore, they didn’t know you, and you didn’t know them. You fought down any tears that wanted to spring up. Just what would they think if you started cry for seemingly no reason? Would they act like your old owner? A shudder trailed up your spine and you did your best not to pull a face.

Blue pulled back from in front of you so he was standing tall a step away and he turned to look at the skeleton that had just talked to him. “LOOK SANS!” You cringed at this. “A HUMAN!” Why was he so loud? Didn’t he know he needed to be quiet for the animals that had sensitive ears? You gently rubbed Toby’s head as he gave a small whine. Poor dog, you felt sorry that he was so close to the sudden loud voice. A person working at the shelter was quick to send a disapproving look at the skeleton, but said nothing, yet at least. If he kept up with the loud voice, you know that somebody was going to have a talk to him about it.

“wait, really?” A somewhat gruff voice came closer and you saw a dark looking skeleton drawing near. Once again, he looked similar to the other two.

Another skeleton - again, he looked like the others and a part of you was starting to question things - walked closer to peer at you through narrowed sockets. You noticed this one was taller than the others before you caught sight of the heels he wore. At least the one in the darker jacket seemed to slouch, plus with their varying distances from you, it was hard to tell their true heights compared to one another. “THEY DON’T LOOK LIKE MUCH.” You didn’t like how this last skeleton seemed to look down on you and found yourself starting to curl into yourself a bit. The looks you were getting from the two with jackets weren’t helping either. Toby finally stood up and growled harshly towards the skeletons to try and get them to back off.

A shelter worker finally came over to request that the louder two tone down their voices as you reached out to put a hand in Toby’s fur. The pomeranian glanced back at you and you opened your arms to him. He quickly took your offer and hopped up into your grasp and you held him close as he glared at the skeletons. You just kept petting him, which really helped calm the both of you.Toby let out a small huff as he settled into you a bit more. A gentle smile softened your face as you leaned forward to put your face into the clean fur. Having Toby there with you, even if you’d only been with this dog since the adoption event had started, was definitely one of the better things to happen to you within recent times.

When Toby twisted in your grasp, worry twisted in you slightly, but the lack of growling was definitely a plus. Looking up, you saw one of the shelter workers standing over you. This one was okay in your books. The old monster kind of reminded you an anteater like you had seen in a book once, and the fact that she had single handedly dealt with an ant infestation just last week in her condition had you thinking that you weren’t too far from the truth. She gave you a kind smile over her glasses - you still weren’t sure how those stayed on her head - and gestured for you to get up. She was mute, and you found she had a tendency to avoid signing around you for fear you wouldn’t understand her. While you understood her perfectly, you never thought to correct her on this as it wasn’t really too important. It wasn’t like you talked back normally, barely any human could. Being able to speak fluently was a sign of a pampered human pet, though some were taught just basic words to be able to communicate. Your last owner definitely hadn’t been the kind to want to pamper you like that, though there were a few words he had wanted you to learn. You had to force down a shudder at the thought. You didn’t like thinking about your old owner.

Gently, you moved Toby down to the floor and stood, absentmindedly brushing yourself from any possible dirt or dust. Wherever you were being taken, you knew he was likely not allowed, even if you hated that you had to leave him behind. You stretched before moving to follow the shuffling steps of the shelter worker and noted the fact that the skeletons were missing. You shrugged and supposed they must have moved on to look at other pets available. Not like it mattered much to you. The old monster lead you out the door that was to your left and you followed her back to the human area of the shelter. This area was small and didn’t get much use as human pets probably rarely ever ended up in shelters. You weren’t exactly privy to the actual information, but you could only assume from what you knew.

Confusion began to worm its way into your mind after you were lead past your room and down the hall. You hadn’t been further than this. There was no need as far as you were aware. Your eyes scanned the hallway as you passed a supply closet and other rooms that were empty before you ended up outside of a door with it’s window only taking up the upper half of it. Your brows furrowed as you looked at the door while the monster in front of you opened it and shuffled inside, pausing only to gesture for you to follow her in. Feet moving of their own accord, you entered and took in the room beyond the door.

It was plainly painted, much like your own room, and there were no windows to break up the blandness of it, but there was a painting of a mountain hanging on the wall opposite of the door, so you supposed that was something. The floor was comprised of the same tiles that made up the floor of all of the shelter that you’d seen so far. You were pretty sure the copious use of tiles was due to the fact that it was easy to clean, especially with all the animals in the building. There was a wooden table in the room, and running your hand across it you could feel the smooth finish too it, which was a bit of a surprise to you as to why this would be in here. Even the small little end table in your room was made of metal, so a table of wood, even one as simple as this, felt a bit luxurious after everything. The chairs were simple like others you had seen in the shelter, wooden chairs with simple cushions on them, made for the patrons so they could have somewhere comfortable to sit. A few different kinds of chairs for different monster types were pushed off to the side of the room as extras as two that fit your human stature sat across the table from each other on the longer sides. The door itself had a blind that was currently pulled up so it was open.

The old monster gestured at you and then to the chair that was on the far side of the table from the door. You wandered over cautiously and placed on hand on the chair and pulled it out slightly before looking at the shelter worker. She smiled and nodded, so you pulled it out the rest of the way and sat down. Your feet crossed and pulled back so they were under the chair you were on. You leaned back in the chair and began to play with your hands as you rested them on your lap. The shelter worker smiled at you before leaving the room and closing the door behind her. Your eyes followed her out and watched her through the window until she disappeared.

It must have been only a few minutes before there was more movement outside of the door. You only saw the first monster because they were flying, their size probably would probably be roughly the height of the table in front of you while measuring their whole length if you had to guess. They had bat wings that sprouted from their back and they had short arms, but had no legs. They were pretty reptilian in look as well. The flying monster motioned to the door and fluttered away from it and the door opened. You blinked in surprise as you had been so focused on the flying monster that you hadn’t even noticed this other monster moved to open the door.

At the sight of the monster that stood in front of you, you were pretty sure that you even stopped breathing as your body went rigid. It was one of the skeletons from earlier, the one darker looking one that slouched pretty obviously. They didn’t even acknowledge the monster that lead them there, just shut the door and turned around to draw the blind down over the window. You felt nerves begin to coil in your stomach, but stayed still, forcing yourself to take slow, deep breathes so you wouldn’t end up passing out - you were already vaguely lightheaded.

The monster turning to face you did nothing to help calm you, but you were pretty certain you were doing a good job of hiding your fear. It didn’t stop the twist in your stomach at the predatory smile his sharp teeth pulled up into. He sauntered over, losing the slouch as twin white eye lights focused on you. The light in his right eye disappeared as the one in the left turned into a larger red one. You forced yourself not to flinch away as he rounded the table to stand over you. He was taller than you while you sat, but you were sure that you had to be taller than him if you stood up. “hey kitten,” he purred. “how about we have some fun before the others come to try t’ ruin it for us.” You blinked in confusion as he grabbed you and pulled you to your feet, holding you close.

When things finally clicked, your face twisted into disgust and you glared at him. He thought he could just insinuate that he could do that to you?! Sure, if he owned you, you wouldn’t get a say, but at the moment you were owned by the shelter and so there was no way you were ever letting this perv have his way with you. Not after… you quickly pushed those thoughts from your mind. In a way you supposed you could say that you were just protecting Shelter’s, and therefore the Crowns’, property. One hand came up to grab his right shoulder, and the other grabbed his left wrist before you twisted your body and flipped the confused skeleton. A loud noise came from all the bones rattling as they crashed into the tiled floor, but you didn’t cringe, you just glared down at the vile monster that was now below you.

He seemed stunned for a long moment as he stared up at you with two tiny pinpricks of white light in his eye sockets before he blinked and they grew to a larger size. Red magic began to form sweat like droplets on his skull. You’re gaze didn’t change and he didn’t seem to know what to do after you had flipped with such ease. Lucky for him, he didn’t need to think of anything.

A knock came from the door. “RED?! WHAT WAS THAT NOISE?! YOU BETTER NOT BE MESSING WITH THE HUMAN THE WAY I THINK YOU ARE, OR ELSE YOUR BROTHER WILL HEAR ABOUT THIS!” A huff of amusement came from you at these words and how they only seemed to bring a fearful expression to the face of the skeleton beneath you. You turned and moved back to sit down in your chair as Red, as you now knew his name was, scrambled to stand up.

“n-no! it’s-! i-i’m... i was just giving them an inspection to see if they might meet Boss’s standards!” A small part of you felt a smug satisfaction at how he stuttered and scrambled for an answer, even if it was just because of this Boss person.

“I’LL BELIEVE IT WHEN I SEE IT! I’M COMING IN!” The doorknob twisted and the door swung open slowly. You had a feeling the other wasn’t too keen on possibly finding a bad scene on the other side. You just watched the door with vigilant eyes. It was from experience that you didn’t let your guard down around monsters, though a part of you weeped at this fact. The sharp eye lights of the skeleton that wore heels peered into the room, and you noticed a faint dash of relief as his eye lights fell on you and then saw Red a few paces back. “IT SEEMS YOU WERE ACTUALLY TELLING THE TRUTH FOR ONCE.” He crossed his arms over his chest and shifted his weight onto his left leg.

Red glared at the other skeleton. “what’s that supposed t’ mean?!”

“IT MEANS THAT YOU ARE A LIAR AND A PERVERT.”

“hey!”

“I REQUEST THAT YOU LEAVE. YOUR TIME WITH THE HUMAN IS UP.”

“fine,” Red grumbled. He turned to shoot a wary look at you before walking a wide berth around the table. Just like that he was gone, door swimming closed behind him. The other skeleton, who had turned to watch him leave, spun on the spot slowly to look at you with a bone brow raised. He seemed interested to say the least.

You watched him with a steady, unchanging face as he paced closer. Like Red, he completely ignored the chair across the table from you, and rounded the wooden object. He lacked the predatory look of the previous skeleton, but his cool, calculated stare had alarms blaring in your mind. It looked as if he was studying you, judging you, taking in every detail and weighing it against some sort of set of standard in his mind. It was a bit unnerving, but you refused to show it. The way he watched you reminded you of a certain other monster, which only helped you hide any fear or nervousness. If he was like them, then it was a bad idea to show such things as that would just elicit a want for more of said reactions. It was best just to let him do what he wanted and take it without giving him the satisfaction of an emotional response. While you should have followed this for Red too, you just couldn’t let him have his way with you. You never wanted to have that sort of thing happen ever again. Physical punishment you could take, even if being at the shelter had started to make your sense of self preservation return slightly.

“HUMAN.” You blink from your thoughts and look straight into the two eye lights that bore into you, letting out a hum to show you were listening. Acknowledgement is important. “I WANT YOU TO DO WHAT YOU DID TO RED, TO ME.” You startle in you seat, eyes widening before you quickly pull your reactions back into yourself. “DIRECT ME TO WHERE YOU WANT ME TO STAND SO THAT WE MAY REENACT WHAT YOU DID! THE MALEFICENT RAZZ CAN TAKE WHATEVER YOU THROW AT ME!!” Well that was permission to hurt him as well as an order, so you couldn’t argue. A part of you insisted you’d get punished if you disobeyed and so you were quick to stand by your seat, in the exact spot Red had pulled you into. With a beckoning motion you got Razz you stand in front of you. He was still a step away though, obviously not too keen on touching you. If he wanted to reenact what had happened though, he’d need to be a lot closer. “OF COURSE THAT CRETIN WOULD HAVE HELD YOU LIKE THIS!” Razz huffed as you pulled him into position. A blush had formed on his face at the proximity, glow faintly dusting his cheekbones. “SO WHAT HAPPENED TO DETER HIM?”

A hint of uncertainty crossed your face, but you took a quick breath to push it away. You had been ordered to do it, so you would do it. Forcing all thought from your mind, you let yourself move through the familiar motions of flipping somebody. Skeletons were harder to flip than they appeared to be, but you just let yourself flow through the motions. It was almost relaxing to do it. Almost. If you weren’t scared of what would happen to you because you went through with it. A noise similar to when Red had hit the ground echoed through the small room. You stood tall and squared your shoulders as you looked down at the skeleton on the floor to try and keep a strong look about you so he didn’t turn around and attack you back, despite knowing that how you looked would not deter punishment and might even spear it on.

The look on Razz’s face is not one you expected though. There was a hint of delight in his eye sockets. His eye lights also seemed to have taken the form of stars. This was definitely a surprise. He was quick to bounce up onto his feet and he moved back over to you. It seemed that his aversion to touching you was now long gone, replaced by intrigue as he had you raise your arms to hold them straight out from your sides as you stood as tall as you could. He had you lift one leg, then the other, seeming to inspect you. He was eyeing you like before, but it seemed as if he was looking at you in a new light. It felt strange, but you kept your face holding that stoic expression.

When he seemed about done with you, there was a knock on the door. “hey razz, y’done in there?”

“YES, YES. JUST GIVE ME ONE MOMENT.” Your stomach was in knots now at the thought of who was on the other side of the door. It couldn’t be Red, so it had to be the only other quieter speaking skeleton. Razz gave you a quick pat on the head and shooed you over to your seat. You sat without complaint and Razz gave you a praising smile before it dropped off his face as it morphed into a neutral expression that rivaled your own, and he turned to the door. He quickly straightened himself out and dusted himself off before moving over to open it. “THERE. YOU WILL FIND THAT THE HUMAN IS FINE. LUCKILY RED DIDN’T GET ONTO HER BY THE TIME I CAME AROUND. NOW IF YOU’LL EXCUSE ME I WILL LEAVE TO GO SIT WITH THE OTHERS.”

With that, Razz swept his way out of the room with a flare of the short cape that was about shoulder blade length. You blinked, a part of you questioning why he would even have a cape if it was that short, but the rest of you focused on Sans who stood in the doorway still. He was looking down the hallway, watching Razz go. Your eyes slipped down to the table in front of you.

Sans’s slippers make shuffling noises as he dragged his feet as he entered the room. You listened to the door click shut, the shuffling some in further, and then the scrape of the chair against the floor. “uh... hey there kid,” he sounded a little unsure of himself. Studying the grain of the wood the table was made of had a strong allure compared to the option of looking up at him. A sigh left the skeleton as you refused to look up at him. “look... i’m sorry for letting those guys go first. i’m sure they didn’t exactly make the best first impression of us.” A pause. He must be waiting for you to at least react. You didn’t. “well... uh…” The silence was a weight that pressed down onto your shoulders, but you fought with all your will power to keep them unmoving. It was a difficult task, staying still under the scrutiny of the familiar and yet so foreign monster across from you, but somehow you managed.

As the air progressively became more suffocating, you lost track of time. It almost felt as the silence had grabbed time itself and stretched as far as it could get it to unravel. Eventually though, a knock came from the door. Polite, yet loud and energetic. How the two mixed, you weren’t quite sure, yet that knock did it perfectly. “SANS! ARE YOU DONE?”

Sans startled slightly, but nodded before he seemed to realize that the speaker couldn’t see him. “yeah blue. i’ll be right at the door in a moment.” He stood, and you felt his gaze give you another look before it was gone. All he did was turn and walk away without another word. A part of you felt bad, while another part was relieved. This skeleton gave you so many mixed feelings. You let out a sad sigh and heard his feet still for a moment. At first you thought it was because he heard you, but a few moments later the sound of the door opening greeted your ears.

Speaking of greeting, the last of the four skeletons was loud as he greeted Sans at the door. You did your best to block out their conversation. No matter how loud they were, it was still a private conversation and you shouldn’t be listening. So this caused you to started when a blue glove waved in front of your downturned face. Your head whipped up to see what was wanted of you before you flushed in embarrassment and curled into yourself a little bit at the sight of a very worried looking skeleton across the table from you. His eye lights, which had been bright in that other room when he had been in your face before, were dimmer now in worry. “Human… Are you alright?” Were you alright? You nodded. You had to be alright, that’s what they wanted from you here. Your response had the instant effect of having the other skeleton brighten up. His eye lights went back into those stars from before, and you found yourself smiling slightly too. “THAT IS WONDERFUL HUMAN! I AM VERY GLAD TO HEAR THAT. OF COURSE IT WOULD BE FINE IF YOU WEREN’T OKAY TOO, THAT WOULD JUST BE MORE REASON TO MAKE SURE YOU GET OUT OF HERE! ANYWAY! I AM THE MAGNIFICENT BLUEBERRY, BUT YOU MAY ALSO CALL ME BLUE!” He thrust his left hand out in front of him for a handshake. The gesture made your chest ache with thoughts of somebody long gone, but you pushed aside those thoughts to accept the handshake. He seemed pleased with himself after that.

He began to start asking you questions; your name, your favourite colour, your favourite music. Once he realized that you weren’t going to reply, he began trying to see if there was some way you knew how to communicate back to him. You gave a shrug in response back to that and he chastised you gently for using a gesture that was so vague and open ended. He seemed just fine with eventually just talking a bunch by himself to you about anything and everything. It was nice. Simple and accepting. You found yourself smiling the whole time you listened. He reminded you a lot of your brothers, and while it hurt to think that you may never see them again, it was nice to feel like you had them both here, if only for a moment.

Eventually that moment had to end, as much as you didn’t want it too. A gentle knocking came from the door and Blue stood up with an apologetic look. “I’M SORRY HUMAN, BUT IT SEEMS MY TIME WITH YOU IS UP!! I HOPE WE CAN SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN!!” He waved as he pushed in his chair. Smile on your face, you waved back. Your heart felt a little lighter as you saw him brighten at your action. He practically skipped over to the door as you let your head drop back to looking at the table. You listened as it opened and closed. The voices of Blue and a shelter worker who you vaguely recognized as somebody who started at the shelter last week came through the door, but drifted away as they walked off.

A sigh left you as you slumped in your chair. Guess that was it for today then. You were pretty sure they wouldn’t adopt you after you flipped two of them and ignored another. Then again the one seemed proud of you for flipping him. The skeletons were weird. An unbidden smile tugged at your lips, but you didn’t really care at the moment. They were weird, but a good weird. If you were willing to ignore certain details, you could almost imagine that you were back at home with your whole family. The smile quickly fell from your face. Your home was gone, you didn’t know if you’d ever be able to see your brothers again, and this… mess of a reality was all you had left. You bit your lip to fight back the tears that wanted to surface. It was easier to deal with this now than it used to be after everything had just happened, but time did that to wounds, physical and emotional. In a way to calm yourself, your hand came up and rest flat on your chest just below your collarbone and you took a deep breath. This was followed by a few more until the tears no longer wanted to come. Slowly you let your hand fall back to your lap. You were fine. You needed to be fine. As much as you hated that mantra, it had kept you safe and sane in this crazy, messed up world. Maybe one day you could get home, but for now you’d grin and bare the pain so that you wouldn’t get hurt worse.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Papers are signed and you eat some good food.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two is here! \\(^.^)/ Though to be honest it's a bit more of stuff to move the story along to more exciting points, with hints of backstory clues for the MC sprinkled throughout. There's going to be a lot of hints towards the MC's backstory up until I reveal it properly... Whenever that happens. For now, enjoy trying to piece together what she's all been through in life.

Knocking at the door made you jump in surprise. Your eyes snapped up to stare at the door to watch and see who was entering. The kind old anteater monster smiled widely as soon as she saw you staring up at her. You couldn’t remember the last time you had seen her smiling so widely. Your head tilted in confusion, not quite putting the pieces together. Maybe they had gotten you something nice to eat for supper? Surely anything could be better than the small cubes of bread and meat along with beans that they’d been feeding you with a glass of milk for every meal since you arrived. The bread was usually pretty stale too, and the meat too chewy. The beans always left a strange aftertaste and the milk lukewarm. Not that you ever complained. Having bad food was still better than no food, and you feared that they would take your food away if you did complain. Wouldn’t be the first time.

You stood and followed after the monster after she gestured for you to do so. A part of you was happy to be up and moving. Perhaps the influence of your one brother still weighed upon you stronger than you though it could after all this time. He never liked to sit still either, but both of you could behave when you needed to. Now that you were alone in the world, you needed to be able to behave. That didn’t mean your eyes couldn’t wander curiously. You glanced around as you were walked past your room, a brief confusion flickering over you before you remembered the event the shelter was having. You were probably being returned there. Your confusion only grew however when you were lead around a corner that moved away from the shelter’s courtyard.

Fuzzy memories surfaced after you were lead through one of the doors. Memories of being cold. So cold. Things were numb and your body had felt like it was being pricked by a thousand needles as you were warmed back up. The water they had used to clean you was harsh feeling too, and you had been cleaned once a week since. Then the actual needles came. One after another as you were held down so you couldn’t move. You remember your throat ending up raw from screaming at one point, but after that you went limp and stopped moving. That when they put the microchip in your ear and fastened the bracelet around your arm. The microchip was to identify you and whoever owned you from then on out, and you had a theory that it might also be a tracking device. If not the microchip, then that would explain why the bracelet around your arm held a tracker. It was told to others that it just signified visually that you belonged to the shelter, but was too thick and there were bits and pieces that stuck out from the inside that you were sure monitored your vitals. You knew digital devices when you saw them. That and you had once used a fork to hold part of the bracelet away from your arm and not long later some shelter workers came rushing into your room as if afraid that you were dying. You weren’t allowed forks after that.

You blinked when a fluffy tail pushed against your chest with a faint pressure, making you stop. Your gaze was quick to focus on the anteater monster in front you, who bore a worried look as she moved her tail away from you. She held out a hand and motioned to your wrist with the bracelet. Complying to what you could only assume she wanted, you held out that arm. With the gentle curl of a smile upon her face once more, she grabbed the bracelet with both hands. One resting on it while the other supported it from below. Magic poured from her hands into the bracelet. Then had a seam appeared before it popped open and she pulled it off. You watched her put it away, moving just your eyes as you did so. She did not grab another one like you thought she would. Instead, she turned to you and motioned for you to follow her once more. You did so, rubbing at the spot where the bracelet was now missing, feeling strange without it. Did they get new bracelets in and she was bringing you to get one of those? A new model of them perhaps? Either way, the missing weight left an odd feeling tingling through you which you knew wasn’t excess magic from taking the bracelet off.

Everything seemed to freeze when you were lead out to the room at the entrance to the building. You nearly tripped over your own feet in surprise. At the front desk stood those skeletons from before. Sans was writing something while talking to a monster you’d never seen before who worked the front desk, likely a signature if you had to guess. Realization crashed into you at that moment and your eyes widened in shock before you quickly pulled back to your stoic expression. None too soon either as Blue, who was shifted from foot to foot with an excited energy turned in your direction. His smile grew so wide you wondered if it hurt as his eye lights seemed to grow even brighter. “HELLO HUMAN!” he called out as he waved. You gave a small wave back. The others were now all looking your way except for Sans. On instinct you moved so you were hidden more by the monster guiding you over to the front desk. Her shoulders bounced with silent giggles.

She moved behind the desk once you got there after motioning for you to stay put on the public side with the skeletons. You shifted on your feet, aware of two sets of eyes on you. Wait. You looked over to the skeletons that were present and realized that it was just Sans and Blue present. Where were Razz and Red? Not that you minded that Red wasn't present. Despite the fact that you didn't think he would try anything while around others, his presence was still one that rubbed you the wrong way.

Speak of the devil and he will come. You eyed Red and Razz as they approached, shifting your weight from foot to foot warily. You were ready to run to somewhere safer until those adoption papers were signed and you were no longer able to hide from their wrath. The two seemed to ignore you, though Red moved to walk behind Razz and on the other side as they approached. Red had a bag from the gift shop and that only served to cause more worry to rise up in your gut. Blue happily greeted the two with a wave and the three of them then started to walk off, leaving you alone with Sans. Well this was going to be weird.

You edged over to the counter slowly as he talked with the monster behind the counter and signed things. Not wanting to be a bother, you sat down near his feet. Leaning back against the counter wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world with the way the wood curved out towards you. Monsters wandered through the hall to get off into other parts of the shelter. Some had children with them, some had animals on leashes. You weren’t looking forward to likely ending up with another collar you’d be forced to wear. They were something you could deal with, but they were also kind of demeaning.

“alright kid, up you get.” You startled at Sans suddenly speaking. He motioned for you to stand and with your head lowered you obliged.

“I just have to scan her chip and then you’re all set,” the desk monster told Sans in a peppy voice. Without prompting, you leaned over the shorter portion of the desk where Sans had been signing things, already knowing exactly what they wanted. The monster brushed the hair along the left side of your head back as you tilted to have that side up to expose your left ear. Cold metal brushed against the earlobe and with practised ease it didn’t draw a reaction from you. At least this was painless. Getting the chip was the painful part, and if you ever wanted to remove it, that would be no picnic either. The earlobe was still a better place than the palm of your hand you supposed. At least you didn’t have to worry about losing the ability to use that hand if there were any mess ups with the microchip. Earrings were probably out of the questions for the rest of your life though, even if you get the microchip out the thought of having anything else in your ear wasn’t the most appealing.

A beep let you know the scan was done, and a quick pat on your head with a short bit of praise let you know you could pull back again. One of your hands came up to grip the elbow of the other arm as your shoulders hunched forward in a protective manner after you were standing up once more. You could feel the gaze of Sans linger on you for a moment before he was talking with the desk monster again. Whatever they were talking about was blocked out as you stood there, waiting for a command to follow by your new master.

When a hand gently touched your right arm, you startled, jumping and pulling into yourself a bit more. It took you a moment to realize that Sans had touched you to probably grab your attention since you had zoned out on him. Straightening yourself you turned to look at him and tilt your head, silently asking what he wanted. Sans jerked his head towards the main entrance and exit to the shelter. “c’mon. i’m in charge of bringing you home while they others are out shopping.” He began to walk away after that and you followed without hesitation, making your footsteps heard so he didn’t have to turn his head around to check that you were coming. You were a good pet and could follow orders.

Even with your head down as you followed along behind Sans, keeping his feet in view, it wasn’t hard to notice when everything changed. One minute you’re walking out the main door to the shelter, and the next you’re walking into a room with a wooden floor. With your nose scrunching up in confusion, you let your gaze wander up from the ground to look around. A panic pulsed through you at the sight of the barren vaguely cream walls of a small space with a barren mattress on the floor not far away. As good as you could quickly pull your expression back under control, breathing was a different problem. Breathes quick and uneven with the boiling emotions. Your gaze quickly snapped around, looking for Sans. He was standing just outside the door and holding it as it was mostly closed already. “nothing against you kid. just need to keep you hidden for a while. food will be brought to you later. either by red or myself.” With that he closed the door and the distinct click of a lock could be heard.

No. No, no, no, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. With Sans gone you didn’t other to try to hide your panic. You rushed to the door despite knowing that it was locked and tried the knob anyway. Just like you knew it was, it was locked and didn’t budge under your frantic efforts. With a shaky breath you let your head hit the door - lightly knocking against the wood - before sobs began to shake your shoulders. Why had you expected anything else? Of course you were locked in a room again. That’s all a human like you deserved. Your kind was violent if they were kept down by monsters after all. At least, that’s what you’d been told many times over by this point.

There was no point in pounding on the door and calling out for help. You shouldn’t even know the word after all. If anybody out there heard your calls and then found a human, well, you’d had enough of that sort of treatment already. Instead you just let yourself slowly wind up on your knees in front of the door, sobs that were quickly tamed to be silent racking your frame. Tears bubbled down your face as your head rested against the door that might as well be another wall. You were trapped again and there was nothing you could do. Nothing that wouldn’t risk whatever monsters were out there from finding out about things you’d rather keep under lock and key for now.

Instead of sliding down the door and sobbing in front of it in a pointless plea for help, you pushed off of it and went over to the bare mattress. Sitting down and looking around you supposed that at least it wasn’t a dog bed. The others didn’t even seem to expect you to have been in the shelter, so the fact that you had this at all was a lot. There was enough room that a litter box or something of the sort could also be shoved in along with food bowls, but other than that the room was pretty small. Had they planned on locking any pet they got in this room and sticking the essentials in afterwards? Not like it mattered anymore what they were planning to begin with, after all, you were here now. It didn’t matter what their plans changed to, you were in here and they were your masters so you were stuck obeying them no matter what they wanted of you. A part of you vainly hoping that Red wouldn’t figure this out and force you into things you didn’t want. While he may seem scared or weary of you now because of that flipping stunt, he’d probably quickly realize his power over you and would punish you before or while doing whatever he wanted to you.

Scooting back further onto the mattress you hiccuped a sigh as you forced your tears down. You were completely successful in stopping them, but you did calm them into silent tears that just rolled down your cheeks by themselves. All there was to do in here was pace the small space, let yourself get lost in your thoughts, or sleep. The third option sounded like the best for the moment. Even dreaming you were back home would be better than letting your mind wander right now. So long as you didn’t have nightmares about… before, then you would be fine. At least you hoped you’d be. Whatever. What the skeletons had in store for you was their business. You were just helplessly along for the ride now.

 

“‘ey. wake the fuck up. i could just not feed ya y’know.” Your face scrunched up at the feeling of the mattress beneath you moving. Forcing your heavily and crusted eyelids apart you saw Red kicking the thing you were curled up in the middle of. Not extremely fond of the occasional jerking movements, you sat up and rubbed at your eyes to let him know that you were awake. He grunted as you no doubt suspected he was watching you. Not like you cared. You yawned and stretched, before finally turning your attention to him while rubbing at your face to try and help get away the slight itch from where the tears had dried on skin. “good. you’re up. take the fuckin’ food. dunno why, but razz insisted on making it for ya.” He put the plate down on the bed and then moved to lean against the door. “hurry up. don’t got all day.”

A quick glance at his glaring face was all you needed to motivate you into pulling the plate closer to look at what you had been given. It was a pair of wraps. Lettuce, tomato and turkey along with whatever dressing was used from what you could see. Better than the food from the shelter at least. You’d never actually had food of this combination before, so you picked up one to take a tentative bite of it. Ranch dressing, nice. It blended well with everything and the flavour reminded you of a salad in a bread. Now that you’d had some, hunger made your stomach gurgle loudly. Because of the repetitive diet you’d had at the shelter, and the fact that you weren’t sure how long it’d been since you’d last eaten thanks to your nap, you were practically starving.

The food was gone quickly, although you tried to pace yourself to make sure you wouldn’t end up sick. The familiar feel of magic in the food made you feel light, full, and with renewed energy. It was nice. The food from the shelter had been monster food too, but it was never prepared well enough to have good side effects like this. You had missed this feeling.

“Ya look weird with a smile.” Red suddenly talking had you jumping in your sitting position as you were startled out of your thoughts. You blinked for a moment as you registered what Red said before one of your hands came up to your mouth. There was indeed a smile there and you quickly turned your face towards the ground so Red wouldn’t see it anymore. What was wrong with you? Getting happy over food. Even if it had been a long time since you’d had food that good. Either way your persona of not caring wasn’t going to stay together very well if you let your expressions just go out of your control like that. If you didn’t care then they couldn’t hurt you, but now that Red knew that you liked at least this food, he could use that against you. You pushed the plate forward for Red to take back so he would just leave already before moving to curl up again.

Red huffed at this, but you heard him pick up the plate regardless. There was a moment where there was no movement. He was still there though, you could feel his presence as his gaze made your spine tingle. This just caused you to want to curl up into a smaller ball and pretend you no longer existed. Instead you stayed still and acted as if you couldn’t feel him or it didn’t matter. Eventually he must’ve grown bored of this as the noise of him turning and taking a step away occurred before silence once more. You knew he was gone now. He had to be. It didn’t matter that you didn’t hear the door. Sans couldn’t be the only monster to teleport after all, and there had to be a reason Sans had mentioned himself or Red rather than Razz or Blue.

With him gone, a good meal in your stomach, and sleep still not have fully let you go from before, you shifted on the mattress to find a vaguely more comfortable spot. You were going to sleep again and given that you didn’t know what the skeletons had in store for you, you at least didn’t want to be sore when you woke up. Sleep was quick to tug at you once more and a small yawn escaped you before your eyes fluttered close to blissful darkness once more.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You get taken to a groomer's basically.

You jolted awake and stopped breathing for a moment from panic that gripped your soul. It took a few seconds for your mind to remember that you needed to breathe and you took quick and short, shaky breathes. Without really thinking, your body curled up more on the mattress in a defensive manner. You were shaking, but you barely registered it as you brought your hands up to cover your head. Tears blurred your vision and no amount of blinking seemed able to get rid of them.

The click of a lock had you tensing up. You almost forgot to breathe again. So it wasn’t just a dream? You were back? You didn’t want to be back, but how long had it been since anything or anyone cared about what you wanted? Of course not being there anymore was the dream. A foolish dream. Why would you ever be free. You deserved this though, didn’t you? So when the hand grabbed your shoulder you cursed yourself for reacting, your shoulders going stiff. It pulling away quickly you also expected, and you tensed. Instead of coming to hit you like you expected, it simply touched gently to your back and began to rub in soothing circles.

It took your mind a moment to figure out what was going on. “Hey. Can you hear me? Deep breathes. Come on. You’re safe. You’re fine. We’re not going to hurt you. Just take deep breathes.” You stared blankly at Blue as he spoke in the quieter voice while he rubbed your back. It was strange to hear his voice in the quieter and calmer tone after only hearing it so energetic and loud before, but it was nice. Blue smiled at you as you relaxed under his touch and your breathing began to even out. “There we go. You’re doing great. Just keep going like that.” More encouraging words came from him until you were able to breathe without him there to keep you calm. He scooted back and stood from the mattress.

“Are you feeling better now?” While the quieter tone was strange from Blue, from Razz is was even stranger. It still held the power in it of when he spoke loudly, but you could tell there was a softer side to his voice as well despite his expression not saying otherwise. His eyes held a light that spoke towards that softer side though. “Well?” You blinked as you realized you had been staring. Sitting up you nodded while averting your gaze down to the bare mattress. “Good. Then we can be on our way.” You heard the sound of bone knocking on wood twice. The next thing you knew you were being grabbed roughly by the arms. You tensed and your breathing stopped for a moment before your self taught reactions kicked in and you went limp and your breathing returned to normal.

A grunt came from the one holding you. “stand up on your own will ya? it’s not my job t’ be carrying ya around.” At the order and the familiar voice you stood. Your gaze remained downcast as you knew better than you look at your masters if there was even a chance of a foul mood in the air. It could make things worse. “i’m gonna take ‘er off to sans. you guys can catch up on yer own.” With that the group underfoot shifted and you moved slightly to adapt a familiar stance to help you deal with the teleportation.

When you came out on the other side of the quick transition, you remained as you were, waiting orders. You heard the sound of dirt shifting on the concrete you could see beneath your feet, yet you avoided reacting. “you seem to be handling the shortcut pretty well. especially considering red probably didn’t try to ease you through it like i did yesterday.” The slippered feet of Sans came into your view. You didn’t acknowledge the skeleton beyond a small nod of your head agreeing to the fact that you were indeed doing fine. Seeming to understand that you aren’t going to acknowledge him further, Sans sighed. Despite knowing it wasn’t an upset one you still flinched. “look kid… chin up? You don’t have to talk, but your participation is kind of needed for this.” His left hand was placed under your chin and pushed gently. You let him manipulate you without resistance. When your gaze was on him, he smiled gently.

“ugh. i don’t get why you’re acting so soft t’ ‘er. she’s a pet, so just treat ‘er as such,” Red scoffed as he let go of your arm like you were something he never wanted to touch ever again. Honestly, at this point you’d be fine if that were the case. “let’s just get ‘er in, get her all dolled up, and then she can go in the box and be our brothers’ problem. the other two are no doubt on their way, so let’s just get going.” The mention of a box had you do a quick double take, but the mention of brothers made you think you had an idea of their plan for you. You were a gift. A laugh almost left you at how absurd it sounded to your mind, but you kept it down and kept your poker face. It wasn’t really absurd here. You were a pet to them after all. By the king’s beard they had just adopted you from a shelter! What more could you have expected?

You followed the two skeletons as they began to walk towards a nearby building. ‘Snow Cloak,’ the sign above the door read. Another sign sat in the window. ‘For all your human care needs.’ It felt a bit bizarre to see such a thing, but through the window you saw that there was clothing and at least some hair brushes. A hair brush sounded wonderful. It had been a while since you’d had a proper one. You’d been making due with your fingers in your freetime and while that was all well and good since you had lots of freetime, an actual brush would be great. The soft tinkle of bells as the doors was nostalgic and made you feel a little homesick, but you brushed that aside in favour of looking around. Not only were there the clothes and hair brushes that you’d seen from outside, but you were pretty sure you could see a section with soaps of all kinds. Plenty of care items along with the clothing, and humiliatingly, items that could be used to mark ownership. You let a small sigh escape you at all the objects both familiar and foreign.

Sans walked up to the front counter as Red headed off to look at the ownership items. Oh goody. You followed Sans over to the counter, not wanting to have anything to do with Red. “yeah. i’ve got a human one of my housemates made an appointment for here,” Sans told the white fox monster behind the desk. The monster’s gaze flicked over to you before moving over to the computer by them. They then picked up the desk phone and made a call to somebody.

“Chern will be here shortly,” was all they said before going back to the computer to do whatever. A glance at Sans let you see him shrug before he began to walk off to where there were some hair brushes. You followed as your gaze fell down to his feet once more. Sans mumbled to himself about what kind would be best.

Just as he turned to you to probably walk past to look at something else - because there’s no way he could be asking you your opinion… right? - a voice called out from the back of the store, “Is Razz here?” Sans turned in the direction of the voice.

“nah, but i’ve got the human he made a reservation for yesterday.” Red came trotting over as Sans lead you towards the stranger.

The stranger hummed. “You two kind of look like him… Would it be rude to ask if you’re matra?”

“well it is what we are, so it was either that or you would ask us if we were siblings,” Sans shrugged.

Red made a disgusted noise. “yeah, that’s a thought i coulda gone without.” Sans snickered.

“Well!” A muffled clap came from the strangers, like they were a furry monster or at least had some sort of padding over their hands or paws or whatever they used. “Let’s get going now, shall we?” You could only assume that your masters nodded as the stranger turned around. You blinked as you noticed a silvery grey tail with black spots and the top half of the tip being black. The underside of the tail was white. It was long and fluffy and a part of you wanted to reach out and touch it despite knowing how rude that’d be. It reminded you of a cat’s tail, only with longer fur. It swished as the stranger walked away and Sans followed. You followed after Sans’s slippers and listened to red shuffling along after you, keeping you from running if you ever thought about it, not that you would. Running was futile anyway. With the chip in your ear, even if you somehow managed to run away - even though it’s not like you even had the will to anymore - if you were caught then they’d just scan your chip and bring you back. Either the skeletons would keep you, or they’d put you back to the shelter. While the meal you had been given by them was a lot nicer than the shelter meals, you still weren’t sure how the skeletons would treat you. That uncertainty was a bit unnerving, but you had no choice here. You were a pet, nothing near as good as them in anything. At least, from the monster perspective, though you had no chance to argue your case. Your opinion didn’t matter after all.

You jumped due to being startled out of your thoughts at the feeling of something large and definitely not made of bone gripping your shoulder. All movement from you ceased not long after as your mind struggled to catch up with what had happened while you were in your thoughts. It seems you went in the back of the store and were in a room now. You could see the stranger’s feet in front of you. “kiddo, you okay?” Sans voice caused you to nod.

“I told you, perfectly fine. She’s probably just lost in her thoughts… er… you do go by female pronouns right?” You didn’t respond to the stranger. They could call you whatever they wanted to anyway, so why did it matter what you prefered to go by? Yet the silence persisted. Maybe they really wanted an answer from you? Not knowing what to do you just shrugged. “I’m not exactly too glad about an indeterminate response, but I guess I’ll have to take it. If it bothers you to be referred to by female pronouns at any point, please don’t be afraid to let me know.” A few blinks of surprise were what it took for you to fully understand the meaning behind this stranger’s words. They cared about what made you comfortable and they thought of you as capable of making the choice of what you prefer. You weren’t just a pet or a mindless worker.

“don’t get why it matters to ya, but you’re the expert apparently.” Red didn’t sound like he really cared or believed that this stranger was an expert in anything.

Sans sighed, sounding like he wanted to say something. “I like to treat humans with the utmost care. I have a human companion of my own and she has helped me understand a lot about them. So if you wouldn’t mind, could you leave me to do my thing?” Without even knowing him all too well, you could only imagine that Red was about to argue leaving. He just seemed very confrontational. The choked noise from him as well as the sound of a door opening behind him could only be caused by Sans you assumed. “I’ll have the monster at the front desk call you when I’m almost done with them if you’re not out in the store. I do believe we have Razz’s number as the contact for your human here, but if you’d like to leave your own numbers as well the monster out front can help you.” Sans must’ve given some sort of nonverbal response because the door was soon closed and you could hear Red’s muffled swearing through the door which faded as he must’ve been dragged away by Sans.

A gentle knock then came from a door off to your left. “Got everything ready and hear owners gone! Come out now?” Despite the broken English, it was obvious that whoever was behind the door you couldn’t see knew enough of the language to at least somewhat understand what was going on. It was strange though. It was more akin to hearing a child speaking than hearing somebody who’s still working on another language. There was no accent. Not like you knew a lot about that sort of thing beyond hearing the accents of others who learned your family’s language. Speaking two languages since you were little made you wonder if you didn’t appear to have an accent to both sides. You never noticed any accent of your brothers who grew up learning both like you did. Nothing too different from your father who only spoke one but understood both. He prefered to use his hands to speak to others, or maybe he just couldn’t speak English for the life of him. You’d never asked, but you did have fun learning to understand and even perform the hand speak. Another question you’d never asked is if that even had a name. Too late to dwell on that fact any more though you supposed. Not with your family out of reach for possibly forever.

“Yes, come on out of there. You know you could have come out sooner if you wanted.” You let out a small sigh of relief as the stranger’s feet turned away from you meaning that whoever else it was had their attention. Curiosity sparked up as you heard the door open, but kept your gaze downcast. Even if this monster and whoever they had working with them thought of you as a capable individual, you didn’t want to risk anything.

Light footsteps skipped over from where that door must be. “No interrupt!~” It was almost how strange how happy this new stranger seemed. There was a pause for a moment before a second pair of feet smaller than the original stranger’s came up. You were intent to stare at just the feet, but then something startled you into looking up.

The new stranger reached out to you with _human_ arms. This had surprised and scared you and you hopped back with your head snapping up to look at the two strangers finally with eyes bugged. A snow leopard monster and a human looked back at you worriedly. The snow leopard was well dressed and their ears were back slightly with the obvious emotion they were displaying as they seemed to debate approaching you.

The other human seemed to have no qualms about coming closer, or maybe they didn’t know about personal space? Whatever the reason it wasn’t stopping them from getting closer, and despite wanting to back up and get away, you found yourself frozen to the spot with the shock in your system of seeing another human being. How long had it’d been since you’d last seen another human? All your mind could supply you with for an answer was ‘years.’ It’d been years since you’d seen another human, and you couldn’t even say how many years it’d been since you really didn’t know.

“Corduroy be careful. You don’t want to scare her. Razz mentioned that they got her from a shelter, so who knows how she got there,” the snow leopard cautioned.

The human, who must be Corduroy as there’s nobody else in the room, paused their advances and rolled their eyes. “I fine. Just help!” Their gaze was then on you. “It okay. Chern nice! He give good cuddles too!”

“Really? That’s how you introduce me?” The snow leopard, who you could only assume to be Chern, sighed with a smile as he shook his head.

“It true!” Corduroy insisted as they looked back at him. A few chuckles left the monster as they huffed and puffed their cheeks out. “Meanie…”

Chern mocked being hurt at the words. “Aww. Cords don’t say that.”

“Don’t call that!” Corduroy stuck their tongue out at Chern.

Chern laughed a bit more before shaking his head. His gaze then turned to you. “Don’t mind her. She’s excitable, but I don’t think I’d have it any other way.” His smile turned fond as his eyes seemed to grow distant as he reminisced.

Corduroy looked at him and rolled her eyes. She reached out a hand out to you with a smile. You cautiously reached out and placed your hand into hers. “Come.” She tugged gently and pulled you towards where the door she must’ve come from was. You let her guide you, curiosity beginning to take hold in you that you just couldn’t stop. Of course you knew all sorts of information about how humans were integrated into society. You’d been careful in how you always got others to talk about the subject, but you’d learnt plenty about it. Both you and her were pets, yet she seemed so happy and carefree. A part of you felt jealousy bubble up, but you shook it off. Neither of you chose your situation, even if what happened to you was the culmination of your mistakes. It wasn’t as if you could have ever known that everything that you did would lead up to this point. Life was just never predictable like that, no matter how much you wished otherwise.

The room that your escort had come from turned out to be a bathroom. No toilet - not like you expected there to be one. You’d only seen a handful, and most were just images of them. A mix of a shower and large tub was against the far wall and there were plenty of different cleaning products in here. Both a washing machine and dryer were present in the room as well. Towels and some other white cloth you couldn’t figure out the purpose of were folded carefully and left on a bench next to them. “This room is basically just for getting you nice and clean before we do anything else. I don’t know where you stand about how comfortable you are with monsters or other humans helping you bathe, especially not strangers, but we could help if you want.” You jumped away from Corduroy at the voice from behind you, drawing both hands to your chest. You’d forgotten that Chern was even around with your wondering about other humans and taking in of your new surroundings. Which reminded you that you hadn’t really paid attention to the other room. Well, that could be saved for after you were clean. A bath or shower sounded like heaven about now. When was the last time you’d gotten a proper one of either? It had to be before you lost your family, and that was… you weren’t exactly how much time had passed since then. You’d been stuck in a place where keeping time was pretty hard for what felt like a long time after you’d lost them after all.

You slowly shook your head. “No… no help needed... Thank you for... offering,” your spoke softly. Your hoarse voice cracked a little and hurt, so you scrunched up your face a bit. Chern’s face changed into one of surprise.

Corduroy bounced excitedly next to you. “You speak too!” If she had magic, you had no doubt it’d be sparkling in an aura around her.

“Corduroy…” Said human turned towards Chern with a bright expression when he spoke her name. She tilted her head like you’d seen dogs do, a silent gesture for him to go on. Chern took a moment to compose his thoughts before he nodded to himself and cleared his throat. “Could you go get our guest some water from the break room? It sounds like she could use it.” Corduroy nodded and bounded off. You tensed up a little as you were left alone with the monster and he turned his attention to you. “When was the last time you talked?” You blinked in surprise, the question not being one of the many things you expected of him.

Your brows furrowed as you thought the question over. The last time you had spoken? Well, it was screaming or sobbing probably, but either way you weren’t sure exactly how long it’d been. You didn’t know how long you’d been _there_ before you ended up at the shelter. You shrugged. “Dunno,” you croaked before your nose scrunched up at the feeling of your voice pushing its way out. “Hard to keep track of time.” There. Not exactly the whole truth, but enough of it that it wasn’t lying and he hopefully wouldn’t ask more questions.

Chern seemed to go into thought about this. “The shelter and the skeletons don’t know you can talk, do they?” You quickly shook your head. “You can talk more than most humans, so you definitely would be considered more valuable if they knew… but that leave the question as to why you don’t speak then.” He looked at you. You just looked away. That wasn’t something you wanted to talk about, or even think about for that matter. “I take that as it wasn’t a pretty thing to cause the silence. Did you only talk because of Corduroy?” You nodded slowly while keeping your gaze away from the monster in front of you. His movements as he shifted were visible from the corner of your eyes and you curled into yourself defensively a little bit, but made no moves to get away. He hadn’t proved to be mean, and you could still remember reading old ruins about souls talking about the nature of them including only nice things, but you knew this couldn’t be true with what you’ve seen. A part of you was already warming up to him though. Maybe it was Corduroy’s ease around him and complete trust of him that was helping. It made up for where you were lacking in that ease and trust. It was kind of comforting actually, but the longer she was away, the more that comfortable feeling left. You wished she’d come back already.

As if you had summoned her, Corduroy popped her head into the room again. “Got water!” She held out a bottle towards you proudly as she moved to come in. You blinked at the sight of the bottle before grabbing it. Some generic water bottle company or another, you didn’t really care. Twisting the lid off to take a sip, you watched monster and pet interact.

After handing the bottle to you, Corduroy had bounced over to Chern’s side. She beamed up at him and animatedly told him of her short adventure. He listened with a smile on his face, interjecting only when he needed to. They reminded you of a pair of close friends. A sad smile pulled at your mouth, and to hide it you took a sip of the water. It felt nice going down your now sore throat, but thoughts of the two wouldn’t leave your head. It didn’t help that they were right there. A small part of you was jealous. You swatted it away and reminded yourself that maybe one day that could happen, or maybe one day you could have your family and your home back. Either way both seemed like impossible feats for how you were at the moment. Maybe one day. Life is unpredictable after all.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You get all dolled up and ready to be gifted and some skeles worry about you, even if they won't all admit to it.

Being around Chern and Corduroy was definitely the most interesting and fun time you’d had in a long while. You actually started to feel a bit relaxed around both of them. Smiles were allowed to stay on your face and you had fun. The two had left you on your own to shower since you had requested that after Chern explained what you could use for soaps and what everything was for. Apparently that other cloth by the towels that you couldn’t identify before was some oversized shirt that could probably work as a nightgown. Chern had told you to put that on when you were done and just put your dirty clothes wherever since you wouldn’t need them anymore. You must’ve looked a bit wary about that because he quickly explained that part of his job was to get you some new clothes and that that’s what you’d be doing after you came out of the bathroom.

When you came out, Corduroy grabbed you by the hand and lead you over to a vanity with a mirror and a hair dryer and some brushes was settled, and you were pretty sure that those were makeup cases on the vanity’s surface. Luckily, what was probably makeup was ignored. Corduroy went straight for the brushes and tried to brush your hair for you. Since fingers didn’t exactly take care of hair like brushes could, it hurt, but you honestly didn’t care. Just having a brush run through it was something you’d never thought you’d get again so this was wonderful despite the pain. Part way through Chern came over to help. Corduroy had shooed him off, assuring him that she could brush your hair just fine. So the monster just grabbed the hair dryer and begun to use it on the parts that Corduroy had already touched. The hot hair just felt so nice. The two also helped you get your hair how you wanted after they noticed how you inspected how it had grown since the last time you’d had it all down and nice like this. Chern mentioned that a haircut was good for your hair anyway to get rid of any dead ends to help it grow better in the future. You’re not sure how the ends of your hair affect how it grows out of your head, but apparently he was the expert.

Then came them taking you into a separate room for clothes. That was hectic. There was more than you’d ever seen in one place before and you didn’t know where to start. Apparently the skeletons wanted you to look nice for something, and while a couple had offered suggestions for some outfit ideas since you’d be getting more than one which was wonderful in itself. Chern laughed slightly at the matching reactions of you and Corduroy as he read off Red’s idea for something revealing. He quickly assured you that these were just suggestions and that none of the clothes had to be like what was suggested at all while Corduroy mumbled something that sounded like, “bad monster,” which had you actually giggle quietly. This brightened the mood and looking for clothes was actually kind of fun. Of course you had to try on a lot of things, that’s why the nightgown like outfit had been initially given to you since it was easy to slip off for when you needed to try on tops and dresses and the like. You weren’t the biggest fan of the dresses and skirts since they blocked mobility, but you found a  few you enjoyed along with plenty of shirts and pants. You were also told to pick you a couple sweaters and jackets and sweaters were easy enough to find, but when it came to jackets you just weren’t sure. Until you saw a long blank one. You practically pounced on it and tugged it on. It was a tad too big, but that just made it perfect to you. A reminder of your father who wore long coats all the time.

Once that was all done Chern had you change into one of the nicer outfits you’d chosen. A white sundress with short sleeves that had red ribbon trimming around all the edges and a large bow of red ribbon placed in the middle of your back above where the skirt started. You wore black leggings underneath with red and black striped socks covering your bare feet and you pulled them up over the leggings slightly. Corduroy insisted on you getting a black headband with a red bow on it after seeing you in the outfit. She made sure to compliment you a bunch on how you looked and you found yourself eventually hiding behind your hands at just how genuine she was being. You even found yourself sending a playful glare at Chern when he chuckled at the two of you. It was nice, almost like you were with family or friends again. The thought saddened you a little, but Corduroy was quick to distract you again.

The whole time Chern had not pushed the issue on why you didn’t talk and instead made allowances for it. He asked yes and no questions, and when he had to ask something else, he always made sure you had a nonverbal way to answer, like now. Apparently normal humans actually used things to soak up the blood of their menstrual cycles rather than having magic deal with getting rid of it. He has asked what you had wanted and you had been confused so the poor monster had to explain it all to you while looking like he wished he was anywhere else right now. You had just opted to take all of the options just in case so you could figure out what suited you best.

“Alright. I’m going to go up front to have Lena call the skeletons now. You two can have fun back here looking at accessories and maybe picking out soaps that smell nice to you.” Chern called over his shoulder as he walked away. You bit your lip and looked over to Corduroy who seemed excited by the idea of helping you with this on her own. She lead you over to where there was a bunch of soaps in the back and the two of you spent the next while smelling them.

Corduroy excitedly shoved one into you face and you reeled back in surprise. “Smell!” She practically demanded, though there was no malice behind her words. You smiled before leaning forward once more to see what sort of scent this one was. Your nose twitched at a scent you didn’t recognize that was a tad too strong for how much you were breathing in of it. Quickly, you pulled away and rubbed at your nose, but the feeling that was now present just kept building up. You turned your head away from your fellow human and the soaps before sneezing. With a scrunched up face you rubbed at your nose from that weird feeling that almost always came about after you sneezed.

“HUMAN! WHAT WAS THAT NOISE?!” You froze at the sound of Razz from behind you.

Footsteps quickly approached from behind him. “Razz! I’ve told you before that just because you’ve been here before doesn’t give you the right to just come into the back whenever you want!”

“WELL YOU DID SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE HUMAN OBVIOUSLY FOR THEM TO MAKE SUCH A VIOLENT NOISE!” You slowly put down the soap you were holding with one hand and rubbed your nose some more with your other one.

“Razz…” Chern seemed to be a bit unsure on how to say what he wanted to say. “Have you never heard a human sneeze before? I thought you’d have at least heard Krissy or Raven sneeze with how often you bring them around here for your royal family. Sneezing is a perfectly normal thing for humans to do. It’s a way for them to keep irritants out of their noses, though when they’re sick they also tend to sneeze too sometimes. The scent of the soaps must have just irritated her nose enough to cause her to sneeze. She’s fine.” Corduroy nodded wildly next to you in confirmation of Chern’s statement as Razz must have looked over. She placed down what she had held out to you and stood up. Then she offered her hands out for you to take. You took them gently, but kept your gaze on the ground.

Razz huffed and you could hear him gently stomp his foot down. “O-OF COURSE I KNEW THAT! I WAS JUST TESTING YOU!” There was a pause for a moment. “She’s been well while she’s been with you I hope?” The sudden quiet and gentle tone of Razz startled you and you found yourself looking up at him with somewhat widened eyes. He had a faint hint of worry on his face and you found yourself staring in wonder at the expression you didn’t expect from the loud and proud skeleton. His gaze darted over to you for a moment before a light dusting of a shade of red with a hint of a purple to it. It was pretty, even as he sputtered slightly and purposefully removed his gaze to you and back to Chern, his gaze changing to a firm and demanding one. A small part of you was sad to have lost that soft look. Everyone looked better when they were caring about others or happy.

You averted your gaze once more as Chern sighed. “You know what? Let’s just get her out front so that you can all look her over and look over the supplies for her before paying.”

“VERY WELL. I WILL TAKE ANYTHING IF YOU’D LIKE AS I GO OUT FIRST.” there was some shuffling and the sound of bags crinkling before the sound of Razz’s heeled boots left.

“Alright girls, did you pick out any soaps or accessories?” Chern asked.

Corduroy was quick to respond. “Got soap. Best liked soap here. No accessories.” Out of the corner of your eyes you watched as she picked up the ones you had mentioned to her that you prefered. Not long after the sound of them in another bag reached your ears. Corduroy grabbed onto your arm and bounced gently on the balls of her feet. “Chin up! Happy!” You slowly lifted your head and looked over at her, giving her a small smile that wasn’t forced. All of her excitable, positive energy was definitely slowly wearing off on you. She returned your smile with a big grin before tugging your arm towards the door. “Come! We go say hi!”

You let her lead you down the hallway to the store in the front, keeping your head up since she’d stop until you lifted it once more. She kept trying to make sure you were smiling, and you found that with her, even if Chern was following the two of you, you could do it. A bit of worry and fear gnawed at your stomach at seeing the skeletons. It’s not that you didn’t like them, you hadn’t been around them enough to really have an opinion, but you didn’t know where they stood when it came to humans. Blue obviously didn’t care, and Red was just a pervert who might be scared of you now - you weren’t entirely sure how he felt after that whole flipping incident. Sans and Razz were the hard ones to read. At first Razz had seemed so cold, and now his reactions varied, and Sans seemed to try to lighten you up and talk to you, but you didn’t know if that was actually because he cared or if he was trying to get something else out of it. You supposed you could say the same about Blue as you did with Sans, but his boisterous energy and enthusiasm towards you, as well as that moment when he seemed worried about your nightmare seemed to fit together to show that he genuinely cared about you regardless of the face that you were human.

Corduroy pushed opened the door into the rest of the store while letting go of your hand so that she could hold it open for Chern as well. You shuffled off to the side of the doorway and lowered your head with any semblance of emotion leaving your face once more. You may have been allowed to act looser in the back and like yourself and an equal to Chern and Corduroy, but you weren’t back there anymore. You were a pet and you knew your place. Pets weren’t equals to monsters. Not all monsters thought the same as Chern after all. You were glad that Corduroy could have a monster like Chern as her owner. At least some people could live good lives. She was happy, and that’s more than you could ask of life anymore. As long as you were taken care of by the skeletons, you supposed it didn’t matter what they thought of you. You’d be fine as long as you were alive. If they made you suffer then that only added onto the punishment you deserved for all of your mistakes that lead up to this moment. Not that anyone would understand why you deserved to be punished. How could they when they didn’t even truly understand the nature of this world?

Chern passed you with a few things in his grip and Corduroy let go of the door to bounce after him excitedly, you fell in step behind them. The things Chern carried were placed on the counter of the desk that doubled as the check out of the store beside what Razz had already put down. The sounds of talking between the skeletons went quiet as you could feel four pairs of eye lights burning holes into you with their gazes. You started to count how many times the stripes on your socks alternated between the two colours.

A pair of arms swept you up into a tight hug before you could finish, drawing a startled squeak from you. You struggled against the hold for just a moment after your feet were brought off the ground during the hug before just going limp. No need fighting whatever was happening. The quick movements of the hug were a tad dizzying, but you stayed quiet. No need to give your new master anything to work off of for ideas of punishment. Just because you deserved any punishment they would give you, didn’t mean you were going to seek it out or try to make things worse for yourself. You weren’t a masochist. At least you were pretty sure you were one. Eighty… Eighty seven percent sure. Actually, make that ninety one… ninety six percent certain that you weren’t a masochist. There was a possibility, but it wasn’t super big. Not after what you went through.

“HUMAN! I AM SO GLAD YOU’RE DOING OKAY!” The arms put you down and you stumbled before catching your footing. You blinked rapidly to try to bid the world to stop moving as your arms moved from your sides slightly like you had them resting on short invisible tables that were helping you keep your balance.

Snickers could be heard from Red as Razz huffed. “WELL SHE WAS DOING FINE UNTIL YOU SHOOK HER.”

“OH NO! HUMAN! ARE YOU ALRIGHT?! I DIDN’T HURT YOU DID I?!” Blue let out a mortified gasp as he grabbed your arms in a tight grip so he could pull you closer to check you over for whatever injuries he thinks he might have been able to cause simply by swinging you around in a harmless gesture of affection. Sure, the skeleton seemed to not realize his own strength or what it did to humans at the very least, but it wasn’t like you were going to die from your injuries. You brought your hands up to gently place them flat on Blue’s chest and lifted your head to meet his gaze. You hoped to get across the message of you being fine without actually having to do more. He seemed to understand that you weren’t hurt or that you were trying to comfort him as his eyes quickly began to shine with a happy light as he looked at you and his grin widened. He finally seemed to properly take you in. “WOWIE! YOU’RE OUTFIT REMINDS ME OF THE ONE PAPYRUS WEARS!” You blinked at the name and stared blankly at the skeleton still holding you firmly. Blueberry grinned and let you go, giving you a quick pat on the head.

Sans chuckled at this realization. “the outfit will definitely be a nice bonus to him.” A sad, sinking feeling pulled at your soul as you remembered that you were just a gift from these monsters to others. You supposed you were being given to Papyrus then.

A black crop top style leather jacket was thrust into your chest. You looked down at the clothing item as your arms slowly came up to hold onto the cool leather. “THERE! NOW THERE’S SOMETHING THAT THE OTHERS WOULD LIKELY ENJOY IN THAT OUTFIT AS WELL. THOUGH WE SHOULD PICK OUT SOME SHOES FOR YOU TO WEAR LATER. I’M SURE YOU’LL BE FINE WITHOUT THEM FOR NOW.” Razz turned to walk off to where the shoes were. You watched after him for a long moment.

“well? you puttin’ that on or what?” You startled at Red’s sudden question and hugged the jacket closer to your before realizing that they were expecting you to put it on. You did so as you bowed your head again, not wanting to get in trouble.

After that, Blue had you follow after him to where Razz was to find you some footwear. You were made to try on multiple different boots and shoes that you weren’t particular to. Heels were not what you wanted at all, though you didn’t verbally mention this, it was pretty obvious that you weren’t going to fare well in them. You wobbled on your feet when they tried to have you walk in a pair that had a pretty big heel. As you sat waiting between pairs at one point, you took your time to look over the shoes. Your gaze lingered on a pair of boots that would go up to your knees with fur lining the top. They looked better suited for colder weather, but on a label near the pair read that the boots were enchanted to be suited for all weather, from hot days to cold ones, from dry to wet to slippery conditions. You looked away when one of the skeletons walked up with another pair of shoes, some sandals, and you bring your focus back onto trying on the pairs that were given to you.

Not long later a black pair of the boots you’d been staring at before with cream fur at the top ended up beside you to try, and when you looked to see who had given it to you, Sans smiled down at you. He shot you a wink and you quickly had to turn away before you ended up doing something stupid that could possibly lead to punishment. Those boots were the next ones on your feet though, and they fit perfectly. It took all that you had not to grin like an idiot at how comfortable they felt despite the fact that wearing something on your feet still felt strange after being barefoot for so long. It was almost like wearing a second skin. Actually, wearing a second skin would probably feel weird. Either way, it was extremely comfortable and felt natural.

A quick jog around the store later everyone agreed on getting them for you. They had you take them off for now and then Razz brought them to the register with him as he went to pay. Blue made a comment about possibly having to come back to get more for different occasions as well, but none of the others reacted to that, so you supposed you were probably too close and shifted back a bit.

Once everything was paid for, Red, Razz and Blue walked out front door with the items. The three talking about how they were going to split up the items in order to take them back home. Sans stopped you with a hand on your shoulder. You turned to look at him and he smiled gently, a true smile that reached his sockets. “i’ve got to get you back home kid. don’t want our brothers to notice the biggest surprise.” So you were being gifted to multiple brothers and not just Papyrus. Well at least you could internally prepare to meet the others due to this knowledge. Sans gave you a supportive smile before the world around the two of you shifted. You only shifted to steady yourself, but otherwise didn’t react. Surprise briefly flashed across Sans’s features, but he schooled it pretty quickly. “just uh… stay here for a little while longer. i’ll be back with the others soon enough and then we can get started with the final preparations for the party this afternoon and we can get you out of this small space, okay?” Sans watched you carefully and you realize he wanted confirmation. You nodded. Not like you would have said no anyway, you doubted you had the freedom to.

Relief spread across Sans’s skull and he let you go. You looked around to see the small space from before with at least a pillow and a blanket on the mattress now along with a brown paper bag on the floor next to where the bedding all lay. The skeleton took a step away from you and you watched his slippered feet out of the corner of your eye. One moment he was there, the next the slippers were out of your view.

You gaze wandered back down to the paper bag. Soon you found yourself sitting on the mattress with the blanket wrapped around you as you munched on some fries that had been left inside the bag for you. They were cool, but a touch of warmth still graced them. It was nice. All of this was okay. Once finished with the fries, you wiped your hands off onto the blanket since you didn’t want to ruin the new, and likely expensive outfit you had just been given. It’d be especially bad now given that you were going to be given as a gift so you should probably look your best. You’d worry about them noticing grease stains on the blankets, but there were a few already, so you were pretty sure you were in the clear there. Oh well, if they punished you, then they punished you. Not like you could do anything to prevent it now.

Deciding you had nothing better to do now that you had to wait, you laid down once more. If you didn’t drift off to sleep, then you could stare at the wall and think over everything that had just happened today. Loud and excited humming coming and going down the hallways caught your attention, but you made no move to try and grab the attention of whoever it was as you didn’t want to get in trouble. Not now. You didn’t want to disappoint your new masters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright. So the Papyruses should show up in the next chapter. I'm still working on that, so from here on out updates might not be every week. I'll still try to keep it so that it only updates on Wednesdays to keep a bit of a routine going on here. Writing longer chapters takes time and while I could probably get it done in a week if I worked on just the story, real life gets in the way sometimes.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Papyruses finally enter the story! ☆*:. o(≧▽≦)o .:*☆

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I didn't think it'd take this long to get to the Papyruses. Whelp. They're here now and that's what counts.

When Sans finally came to get you again, you were half out of it. Sleep trying to tug you down as you stared at the vacant wall. His gentle kick of the mattress pulled you away from sleep’s tempting clutches and you yawned before getting up. A nice stretch on the way up pulled at muscles in all the right ways before you turned to face Sans, head bowed as you adopted you submissive stance once more. He reached out and gently placed a hand on your shoulder and you readied your stance for what you were expecting to happen. The teleportation came quickly and you passed through just as easily as Sans himself. It wasn’t hard when you knew what he was doing and the best ways to deal with it.

Your eyes darted around your new surroundings as Sans slowly let you go and backed up, probably watching for negative side effects from his sudden and unannounced use of magic on you. You weren’t phased by his actions at all really, but what did send a small jolt of surprise through you was the box in the room he’d brought you two, along with Blue also being present. Blue hadn’t seemed to notice the two of you yet, so you let your gaze focus on the box he was fussing over. Well, Blue was fussing over the lid which is being kept separate. The box itself was a large box that had a lid that could be completely removed. It was one of those boxes that had a design on it to look like it had been gift wrapped so the gifter didn’t actually have to put effort into that. It was large enough to fit you in it too. The lid that Blue was fussing over had a bow that had obviously been added by one of the skeletons on it and it appeared as if Blue was trying to get it just right. He kept adjusting ribbon so that it would stay right where he deemed necessary despite the fact that all his hard work would probably be undone once the lid was moved.

Sans cleared his nonexistent throat and Blue jumped while you quickly averted your eyes back to the ground. “OH!” Blue cheerily gasped and if you didn’t know any better you’d say he could be bouncing with excitement or something of the like over where he was. It almost sounded like it anyway. The rhythmic patting of covered feet was more than enough evidence of this. You could understand the excitement. To him he was just getting ready to wrap up a present. He probably didn’t even realize that you were even able to fully understand what was going on. You were just like any other pet after all.

You let Blue fuss over you, straightening your dress and jacket while complaining about wrinkles. He also played with your hair, toying with it to supposedly make it look softer. You weren’t a fan of the feeling, it only brought up bad memories, though you supposed that at least his touches were gentle and soft. He straightened the bow and stood back to admire his handiwork. You thought it was nice that he was trying to make you look better, but it was a shame that his attempt would be pointless since you were getting in the box and your clothes and hair would end up messed up anyway. Speaking of the box, Blue actually hesitated when it came to putting you in it. It wasn’t long, just a quick flash, but you caught it out of the corner of your eye. Though because of this you weren’t sure if he actually hesitated or if it was just your imagination being hopeful. There was no time to dwell on this as you felt gravity around you shift.

A small noise left you out of surprise, having not expected the magic, but you quickly relaxed into it. Given that Blue was in your field of view and showing no signs of using magic, that meant that Sans was holding you. As much as you were still iffy about him, his magic radiated a warmth that both held a familiar warmth, and was completely foreign and strange at the same time. Despite this your body relaxed with the reassurance of safety it gave off. He meant you no harm. Not at the moment. So you let yourself be carried by the gravity magic into the box, Blue coming over to help make sure you got put down in a good position. The box was actually surprisingly roomy. You’d probably be able to mostly sit up once the lid was on, and you could curl up on your side as well if you wanted. At least you hopefully wouldn’t end up too cramped then.

Blue fussed over you a little more once you were all settled and then they put the lid on. For a moment you paused when you realized the side didn’t have any holes for airflow. The lid shifted as Blue must have started fussing over it once more. You glanced up and a small smile appeared on your face as you realized that there were slits in the lid that Blue must be covering with the ribbon in order to hide the nature of what sort of gift was inside. Pretty clever in your opinion. Now just to hope that the side of the box you were in kept the receiver from trying to shake it.

The sound of softly padded feet had you prepare for a teleport just in case because you doubted they’d carry this box while knowing you were in it. Not physically carry it at least just so they didn’t shake you around too much. Plus the padded feet were obviously Sans as Blue was still wearing his boots and they’d have a different sound to them. You felt the familiar sense of teleportation wash over you and the sudden noise outside of the box let you know that it had happened. It was a little nerve wracking to not be able to know your surroundings, but you just balled your hands into fists to deal with it. A slow deep breath also helped ease the knot of unease in your stomach. There sounded to be quite a few others out there and you had no doubt they were all monsters. A part of you was curious as to what they looked like while the rest of you hoped that presents weren’t opened until after the guests had left.

“I DON’T SEE WHY I SHOULD HAVE TO SHARE A PARTY WITH THEM. JUST BECAUSE WE SHARE A BIRTHDAY DOESN’T MEAN WE HAVE TO CELEBRATE TOGETHER!” You heard a voice loudly complain with a hint of a growl to it. Some reply must have been given because the same monster huffed angrily with still quite a bit volume.

Meanwhile a loud groan came from near the box, nearly making your heart stop for multiple reasons. Your head naturally turned to look at the monster the voice belonged to despite the trained part of you telling you that you shouldn’t try, and the box blocking your view. “SANS!! YOU LAZYBONES!! YOU DIDN’T HAVE TO TELEPORT YOUR GIFT INTO THE LIVING ROOM. YOU COULD HAVE COME GOTTEN ME TO COME GET IT, OR I’M SURE BLUEBERRY WOULD HAVE CARRIED IT HERE FOR YOU IF YOU ASKED POLITELY.”

“sorry bro. blue made it look all nice and i didn’t want to mess it up by moving it around.” Sans’s voice was so quiet in the noise of the room despite being probably still being near the box that you had to focus in order to hear it.

There was a loud huff again that seemed to be in defeat. “ALRIGHT. I SUPPOSE THAT SINCE YOU WERE PRESERVING BLUEBERRY’S HARD WORK, I CAN ALLOW THIS LAZINESS. JUST THIS ONCE THOUGH!! DON’T EXPECT ME TO EXEMPT YOUR LAZY BEHAVIOUR JUST BECAUSE OF THIS ONE TIME THOUGH!!”

Sans chuckled. “you got it bro. happy birthday.” A loud and happy ‘NYEH’ was his response, though it sounded as if they were moving away. Vaguely you wondered how long it would be until you’d be let out of the box. It’s not like you knew what time it was now, or really knew what sort of meal schedule the skeletons were to have you on. Still it was a vague question that popped up in your mind. Your mind was a safe place to ask these questions though, for as long as you didn’t meet any mind readers. You hadn’t met any yet in your life, so you supposed you were probably safe in your head.

It was a good thing you were safe in your thoughts because you were stuck with just them for what felt like hours. You could hear conversations come and go, a couple monsters gave speeches at one point, and you were pretty sure there was alcohol out there with the way there was slurred shouts leaving some of the party goers. So one crazy party then. One your father probably wouldn’t want you to attend, but you probably would have snuck out to attend anyway back before all of this.

You had eventually shifted to curl up on your side when your knees had gotten sore from kneeling for who knows how long, but when the boisterous announcement came about presents, you shifted back onto your knees as quietly as you could. You noise level probably wouldn’t matter as the room got louder with a buzz of excitement after being told this. Still, you masters had made talk of keeping you a surprise enough that you felt that you moving could give you away more than they would like. Better safe than sorry as you father would sometimes say. Though your father often did go back against that very same saying… He was a good soul though. At least he did best to care for his family. A part of you wondered if it even mattered if you were sitting up when they opened the box, but once more the saying flittered through your head. You would do what you could to stay on the good side of your new masters. You didn’t want to be treated like you had been by your old master. So being a good pet was what you were determined to be.

The sounds of tearing wrapping paper and chatter both loud and quiet filled out ears as you sat patiently. Tissue paper and bags of different kinds also joined the noise. The occasional box was heard being open, but yet yours remained untouched. Loud thank yous could practically be felt through the cardboard the closer to your box the owner came. It sounded a lot like the one who had been admonishing Sans before. So that was probably his brother. Papyrus, right? You vaguely wondered if it was his birthday from all the thank yous. Were the others waiting on him to open his presents before they opened the one you were in together? Why would the four shorter skeletons gets you for more brothers than just Papyrus if it was only Papyrus’s birthday. Something wasn’t quite adding up in your head.

Your legs were already protesting the feeling of kneeling while it sounded like the party was winding down outside of your box. How long had they been opening presents for? You supposed that the presents must have been the last thing that they had chosen to do then. If there was alcohol, then the party goers were adults, so you wondered what time it was. Adults often stayed up late, right? You had an awful sleep schedule and sense of time nowadays. Sleeping whenever you have the chance has just become something you’ve learned to do in order to be able to make sure you never passed out from exhaustion when your old master had wanted to do things that involved you. It was always a bad idea to be tired when you were wanted back then. Hopefully things could go better here.

When you snapped out of your thoughts, you had gotten into the habit of getting lost in them while in the shelter, silence prevailed over the space outside of the box. How much time had you missed? Why were you still in the box? Had they finished opening the other presents? Why were you still in your box then? Glancing up the lid of the box was still definitely present above your head. Had you been forgotten? Were they testing how long you could stay in the box? Were they testing you? While you hadn’t expressly been told that you couldn’t leave the box, you didn’t want to upset your masters. As long as you were in the box you were probably safe from the likes of Red at the very least, and that was plenty of reason to stay in the box in your opinion. While you could definitely fend him off if need be, you didn’t know if he would try to order you into anything you didn’t want. You couldn’t disobey an order, no matter how much you hated it. So if he ordered you you’d be at his mercy.

After waiting for who knows how much longer, you decided to assume that silence was all this area was now. Maybe they had all somehow passed out? Or there was something else they needed to do? Or some other last party trick before they opened your box? Maybe they had all moved to another area. Whatever it was, it didn’t seem like they were coming back anytime soon. A faint hint of hunger bothered your stomach, but you were used to it. You’d gone much longer without food before, even if the shelter had started to get you back into a routine after all the time your old master had spent neglecting your needs unless the whim to give you even just the basic of food and drink to let you survive came to them. You’d be fine to wait however long your new masters wanted you to go without. So to combat any more thoughts about food, you shifted back on your side and closed your eyes. Maybe you could sleep a little before they came back for you.

 

Your slumber was abruptly disrupted by somebody grabbing you and lifting your limp form clear off any solid surface with a squeal that could have pierced any normal human’s eardrums. In response to the loud noise that accompanied the interruption to your sleep, your eyes shot open and darted to look at just who in the world had grabbed you. What you saw had your soul freeze in an almost painful manner. “OH MY-!” The excited proclamation was cut off by another squeal by the same monster who held you. Well at least he was excited. The tall skeleton monster held you so that both your shoulders seemed to match in height. This meant that your feet were clear off the ground. At least you weren’t being swung around excitedly or pulled into a bone crushing hug. It seemed like you were moments away from that though.

Luckily, before any overjoyed handling of your person happened, you were plucked from the excited skeleton’s grasp. Though the sharp toothed sneer of the face that was suddenly filling your vision made your soul clench. The smoldering red embers of eye lights danced faintly in the pools of darkness not deep enough to be called voids, but at the moment it almost felt like it. The crescent shaped slice right through the bone raised hairs along your spine as you could only imagine how painful it must have been to get such a wound. While you had no idea how fresh it was, it definitely wasn’t a recent injury. With it curving with one point facing the temple and then down over his right eye to curve down below his zygomatic bones - cheekbones if you didn’t feel like recalling the ever familiar names of parts of a skeleton. Being over an eye socket much have been the worst pain he’d ever felt. Vaguely you wondered if he was blind in that eye, or at least had impaired vision thanks to the injury. Not something you’d actively test, but you’d keep an eye out for it. “THEY’RE BIGGER THAN RISK AND ARACT.” You barely managed to suppress the flinch at the gravelly hint to this monster’s voice. You wondered if that hurt too. This monster could be suffering and that made your soul cry out. You squashed down the urge to try and help him though. You didn’t need any reasons for them to do anything unsavoury to you.

A small noise left you as familiar yet oh so wrong magic wrapped around your soul and lifted you out of the grasp of the sharp toothed skeleton that had been roughly the same size as the first. “pretty sure the difference in height is because they’re older.” You let your gaze flicker over to the owner of the lazy drawl that sounded so wrong to your soul as the magic carried you over to land on a couch between two other tall skeletons. The one that had spoken was too your right and another sharp toothed skeleton to your left. There was interest in both their gazes as they looked at you. Honestly you just wanted to get off the couch and curl into a small ball and hope they’d ignore you. How long had it even been since you’d last been on a couch? Not for a long time, that’s all you could be sure of. A part of you wanted to just relax and become one with the soft couch, the other part screaming at you to get off before you got in trouble. You compromised with just sitting while tensed up and ready to move at a moment’s notice. You had been placed there so obviously they wanted you there, but what if somebody else was going to yell at your for being on the couch? What if they suddenly changed their minds? You didn’t want to get in trouble for not complying fast enough.

You eyes scanned over the room to take in your surroundings. The two standing tall skeletons were still over by the box you had been in, one with a few magical sparkles caused by his excitement floating around him as the other crossed their arms over their chest and scowled towards you and the two tall skeletons on the couch. Sans was lounging in one of the arm chairs in the room, and Red was on another. While Red looked relaxed while using the chair correctly, he also had a few drops of sweat collecting on his skull as he kept shifting as if he was waiting for something. Blue was excitedly bouncing next to the couch on your right with stars as eye lights, and Razz stood off to the other side of the couch. Just like the tall standing sharp toothed skeleton, Razz also had his arms crossed. Though Razz seemed to be subtly shifting his weight from one foot to another as if he was anticipating something. So basically you were in a room with eight skeletons and all of them had their attention on you to some degree. You knew that despite looking like he wasn’t, Sans was definitely keeping an eye on what was going on. It made your stomach twist with the flutters in your soul. You weren’t quite sure why you hadn’t been ready for all this attentions, and a part of your wondered at what point did having this many monsters focusing on you start to make you uncomfortable. That just made your soul twist in a saddened way.

“HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAPY!” Blue cheered before jumping onto the skeleton seated your right. That sentence just made your soul twist around even more. It was bordering on physically painful at this point already and was taking a lot not to just let your emotions out. “I HOPE YOU LIKE THIS PRESENT!” Something in you paused. It wasn’t just Papyrus’s birthday. Unless this was Papyrus? It would make sense with Blue calling them ‘Papy’ but it just didn’t sit right with you. Blue happily turned his gaze towards you. “HUMAN! THIS IS MY BROTHER STRETCH!” So this wasn’t Papyrus then. The nickname Blue had called his brother was sort of strange though. It wasn’t like you could ask about it though. So into the vault of questions that would stay in your mind it went.

Glancing around you saw the shorter skeletons all saying happy birthday to one of the taller skeletons. Most noticeable was Razz with the skeleton to your left. “HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUTT! I EXPECT YOU TO NOT LEAVE ALL THE CARETAKING OF HER TO EDGE AND PAPYRUS!” The skeleton to your left nodded and it could have been your ears playing tricks on you, but you were pretty sure you had heard them responding with a ‘yes, m’lord.’ It was strange to say the least. If that’s what they wanted to do though, then that was their business. Just another question to add to the pile of things that would stay locked away in your head.

Red was up standing by the standing sharp toothed skeleton. He was hunched over a little and that confident swagger he had held about him before was nowhere to be found. He looked a little unsure of himself. You blinked as you watched Edge pat Red’s head while praising him for ‘at least getting him something interesting.’ Red seemed to glow at the praise.

The last tall skeleton had happily bounded over to Sans and lifted him off of the chair he was seated in. Sans looked completely limp and relaxed as the other swung him a little before hugging him happily. You were not jealous of Sans at the moment. Sans was taking it in stride though. He had a lazy grin and gently patted the excited skeleton in response to repeated ‘thank you’s being directed towards him from the other.

When he was put down, Sans looked around the room. “just want to remind everyone that this was a pet gotten by the four of us for the four of your for your birthday, so you have to share responsibility of your new pet. alright?” You noticed the way Sans carefully eyed each of the tall skeletons around the room before looking back at the one next to him. The subtle shifts his in expression were enough for you to know that each look was meant to be a message to each of the receiving individuals. With the way tall, sharp, and pointy over by Red was looking away with his arms crossed, you were pretty sure the message wasn’t quite received by its intended target. The way Red pulled into himself and started sweating more was sign enough that he had gotten the message loud and clear though, whatever it was. Just because you could get a read on Sans’s face, you weren’t a mind reader or knew him very well if at all yet. Seeming satisfied with himself, he gave a small nod. His gaze then turned towards you. “guess we need to deal with names now.” The skeleton next to him perked up.

“OH! LET ME!” He bounced excitedly from foot to foot. Sans smiled and nodded, practically saying ‘go for it’ without actually speaking. The tall skeleton turned to look at you with a big grin. “HELLO HUMAN!! I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS!! NEXT TO ME IS MY LAZYBONES BROTHER SANS. OVER THERE IS EDGE AND HIS BROTHER RED.” He waved to the one tall skeleton who was ignoring him with Red sinking into his jacket. “THEN TO YOUR RIGHT IS STRETCH AND HIS BROTHER BLUEBERRY! THOUGH HE ALSO GOES BY BLUE” At least that was a pair you already knew. “AND LAST, BUT NOT LEAST IS RASPBERRY AND HIS BROTHER HICKORY! RASPBERRY ALSO GOES BY RAZZ THOUGH.” You were a little confused as to why the last pair would refer to one another like you had heard them doing, but that was their choice you supposed. Also, you were definitely sticking with the shorter nicknames in your head. It was just easier and faster to think of one syllable than three. “WELCOME TO OUR FAMILY!”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Settling into your new home.

With introductions out of the way, silence had taken over the room for a moment. Papyrus fiddled with his fingers indecisively before turning to look at Sans. “DOES THE HUMAN SPEAK?”

“NOT TO US IF SHE CAN. THE SPECIALIST WE TOOK HER TO PREPARE HER FOR THIS INFORMED US OF HER PREFERED PRONOUNS THOUGH, WHICH IS FEMALE IF YOU HAVEN’T FIGURED IT OUT BY NOW.” You were a little surprised when Razz spoke up to answer the question. You supposed he must having been paying a lot of attention to you the times he was around you and perhaps even talked to the others to try and figure out more. Chern obviously hadn’t told them about you talking, or maybe none of them just never asked. You could see both being possible. Though it didn’t matter since they didn’t know about it either way.

“do you know her name?” Stretch asked from beside you and you could feel his gaze focused solely on you. Suppressing a shudder you turned you gaze to the floor in front of the couch.

“NOPE! SHE DOESN’T TALK AND THE SHELTER DIDN’T KNOW EITHER, SO WE DON’T EVEN KNOW IF SHE  _ HAS _ A NAME.” Despite Blue just stating a fact, you curled your hands into fists at hearing it. You did have a name. Your name was important to you and you’d never forget it, even if nobody ever called you by it anymore. Not since you’d last seen your father, the last relative of yours you had seen before having life thrust you into the series of events your life had become since ending up here. You still weren’t really sure where here was, but that didn’t matter as much as getting through another day. You were somewhere that wasn’t home and that’s all that really mattered. You’d fix things and get back home someday. You were determined to. Someday…

Mentally shaking yourself you focused back on the world around you. “guess we just have to give her a name,” Stretch mentioned. You pressed your lips together tightly so you wouldn’t try to say anything. Speaking made you more valuable, but saying something wrong always resulted in harsh punishment, and with your old master you always seemed to say the wrong thing whenever you said anything beyond “master” or whatever you were ordered to say with master added on just for good measure. So you just gave up with talking beyond what you were ordered to as if it just meant pain, then you would rather be mute.

“OH! LET’S CALL HER PAPAYA!” Papyrus’s eager voice sounded out. He must have gotten a few questioning looks as he continued on a moment later. “WELL I’VE HEARD A FEW PEOPLE REFER TO ME AS THAT AND HER OUTFIT KIND OF LOOKS LIKE MINE SO THEN WE MATCH EVEN MORE. DO YOU LIKE THAT NAME, PAPAYA?” He must have turned to look at you for the last question. You ignored him and kept your gaze on the ground, giving no visible reaction to the name he chose for you. You may have answered to a few… terms… your old master had called you instead of your name, but you knew that the intent of replacing your name was never there and that punishment would come if you didn’t listen, so you had acknowledged whatever you had been called back then. Now though, your very name was on the line and you wouldn’t take that. If they wanted a reaction out of you so that they knew you liked the name, then you wouldn’t give them one. Your name was your identity, a part of your very soul. Anyone could learn it if they just did a simple check of you. The shelter had never bothered, so were they neglectful of their duties, or did they not think that worked on humans? Did they only do it when in an encounter? Now you had a lot of questions. Checks in encounters never showed HP, so it’s not like that would help them figure out how much pain you could take, but there were other ways to tell at least how much more a living being could take just by looking at their soul - your old master had been very thorough in making sure that you knew this from how you were always kept near the brink but never let go far enough for your suffering to just end.

You blinked when you realized that a different skeleton was calling a different name. How many had they tried so far? You should really lose that habit of getting lost in thought while others are around you that you had picked up while at the shelter. You had been safe there, but you didn’t know how safe you were here. Especially with the sharper looking brothers. Edge and Red were probably the ones you really had to look out for. Razz was a little strange, but he seemed like less of a threat now. When you had first met him you’d put him around Edge and Red levels, but after that flip you were a little more uncertain. Since Hickory seemed to listen to Razz - almost like a pet himself really, which would explain the fact that Razz calls him Mutt - you didn’t think you’d have to worry about him either. Just to be safe you’d best keep an eye on his actions around you just in case. He didn’t seem like the type to give order himself though, so you could probably get away from anything he tried to do to you.

The growling, upset tone of Edge brought you back to the world around you. Man, you really need to stop zoning out. “THE BITCH MUST BE AN IDIOT IF SHE WON’T RESPOND TO A NAME THEN.” You tilted your head to look at Edge as he spoke after he slandered you out of pure learned response. Your old master had made it plenty clear that you needed to pay attention to every bad thing said about you.

Beside you, you heard Blue make a sad or upset noise and Stretch curse quietly under his breath. “shit, kid, what happened to you?” A part of you wanted to reply with  _ ‘Life happened.’  _ Still, you remained silent. Edge was glaring at you with a dark expression as you looked at him, waiting for him to say more.

“SWEAR JAR!” Papyrus suddenly yelled, not like it really mattered with his usual boisterous voice. He dashed off to grab said jar as Edge growled lowly while keeping his gaze on you.

“AT LEAST SHE KNOWS WHAT SHE IS.” His words might’ve stung if you were a normal person, but after being under the reigns of your old master, they had no effect you. It was a little sad that you were so used to the treatment that you were numb to it, but that’s just the way life had decided to be. Sad, but there was nothing you could do to change the past.

A silence that the other skeletons clearly found uncomfortable if their shifted around was anything to go by then prevailed throughout the room. Nobody dared say anything, or perhaps they didn’t know what to say. How does one follow up to that? Luckily for them, Papyrus returned with the swear jar and presented it before Edge. The two began to bicker over it and you lowered your head so that your gaze returned to the floor once more. You were no longer being talked to and so you should return to being silent and invisible. Best not attract any more attention, that had never been a good idea since ending up in this place.

With the two tall skeletons debating over a swear jar, it seemed that nobody wanted to go back to the subject of a name for you since that was what had caused it in the first place. That and you had a feeling you ignoring the names they wanted to give you only to respond to somebody degrading you probably spooked them a bit. You listened and watched out of the corners of your eyes as they slowly dispersed.

You sat there a while longer, not wanting to move without being told, before Papyrus picked you up excitedly. “HUMAN! WHILE I CAN UNDERSTAND YOU NOT WANTING A NEW NAME, LET’S AT LEAST SHOW YOU AROUND YOUR NEW HOME!” His wording drew your eyes over to where Blue was bouncing excitedly by his side. Guess these two were partners in crime, or in crime busting since that would probably fit them better from what you had seen of them so far. You gave a small nod and almost regretted it when the sparkles began floating around Papyrus again and he looked like he had returned to the verge of squealing. As much as you knew you could handle it, you hadn’t had to deal with this much noise constantly for quite some time. Sure, animals and small children could get loud, but you weren’t subject to their noise often.

Luckily, Blue seemed to notice your predicament and took pity on you. “COME ON PAPYRUS. SHE CAN WALK ON HER OWN TWO FEET. PUT HER DOWN AND WE CAN START SHOWING HER THE HOUSE.” Sure, he had a loud voice too, but boisterous voices were still better than excited squealing. It maybe take a while for your ears to get used to the loud talking, but you’d deal with it. You’d dealt with worse before after all. Actually, the loud noise was kind of comforting all things considered. Better to know what was going on and where others were than to be left in silence, wondering when the next batch of suffering and pain would be inflicted. As much as noise could cover up when danger could be lurking, you found it familiar and comfortable. You supposed that was because it reminded you of home and growing up with your brothers who you got into a lot of trouble and mischief with. Maybe that’s why your soul let off a pained pang as Papyrus smiled widely at you and put you down gently with a somewhat apologetic expression.

“I JUST GOT SO EXCITED TO SHOW THE HUMAN AROUND!!” He gently pat your head and despite your best efforts you flinched slightly. You didn’t think he noticed as he turned to gesture around the room, but you caught the sad and worried look that Blue sent in your direction from the corner of your eye. “WELCOME, HUMAN, TO SCENIC OUR HOUSE!” A small smile twitched at the corners of your mouth.

The two boisterous skeletons then went on to lead you around the house, explaining what everything was, even if it was pretty obviously like the living room area. Of course your tour started in the living room, which was quite big making you wonder just how large this house was. It even had a fire place and a grand piano! The two were quick to tell you that the piano wasn’t really used all that often and that the only reason they kept it around is because a couple friends enjoyed playing it.

Next came the dining room which had a table that could seat more than just the skeletons you had met. Were there more monsters hanging around than you had met? A few of the chairs weren’t aligned with the table properly and Papyrus was quick to fix those as Blue talked about how they had more chairs in storage to fit other monster types just in the event that they had others over that would need them. If that and the living room hadn’t already made these monsters look rich, the large kitchen with beautiful stone countertops definitely made it seem like they had money. Top of the line equipment too. As you listened to the two explain, before getting into a small debate over the better food of choice, you couldn’t help the smile growing on your face.

They continued on around the house, showing you where the bathrooms were throughout the house, a study on the main floor, the bedrooms on the second floor and in the basement, along with an entertainment center or media room of some kind down there. There was some area that was off limits to you in the basement as well because apparently it was a lab and they didn’t want you to get hurt, though you were sure that whoever worked in there would also be upset with you and them if you accidentally messed anything up, though you highly doubted it was possible for you to do so when you knew the value of such equipment. This place was huge compared to other homes that you had been in. Though then again you’d never been in a home lived in by at least eight monsters before. Though the fact that there were at least eleven bedrooms made you wonder what the empty three were for. One empty one was in the basement and the other two upstairs. At least one of those could be a guest bedroom, but maybe one was used as storage? The two guiding you around had mentioned a shed being outside and they had a couple closets, so you didn’t think they’d need other rooms for storage. Unless they just had a lot of stuff.

The call for supper came as your guides were leading you to go see the backyard and shed after they remembered they were supposed to be giving you a tour and not trying to get you to do puzzles. Puzzles you just stared at like they were traps because you weren’t sure how they wanted you to deal with them since you didn’t know how much about you that you wanted them to know. Puzzles could tell a lot about a person if you knew how to look at them after all. They excitedly began to head off in the direction of the kitchen and you followed them. You weren’t expecting to be fed, but maybe if you were good and stayed out of the way you could earn it. Just prove you could be a good pet and then maybe you’d be okay to have at least the table scraps.

Inside of the kitchen, the two happily stopped to chat with Edge, who had apparently been the one to cook this meal. He scowled as he talked to them and had them grab the dishes to take out to the dining room with them so they could set it up. While they were all conversing, you looked around the kitchen. You had no interest in the food or dirty dishes that were sitting about. You were simply looking for an empty corner. That way you could sit out of the way and wait for any possible food that they want to give you. Out of sight, out of mind. Even if that meant you got no food, that was still better than the possibilities of what else could all happen.

Finding the perfect spot, you walked over and sat down. You curled up in a bit of a ball by hugging your knees to your chest and watched as Blue and Papyrus left the room without you, not seeming to notice or care that you were with them. A part of you wanted the former, but your time in this place had taught you that when it comes to monsters it was probably the latter as much as that saddened your soul. That didn’t change things though, and so you stayed in your spot on the floor. Resting your chin on your arms, you watched Edge move about with final preparations. You hadn’t been reprimanded for looking at any of your masters so far, so perhaps it was okay? You hoped so, you didn’t want to have to grovel in front of any of the skeletons. Ugh. Now that you thought about it, grovel as a word really felt weird outside of playful banter. It felt weird to hear or use it without it being tossed around without much weight behind it.

Edge left the kitchen, some of the meal in hand as he walked out. He hadn’t seemed to have even noticed you enter the kitchen, but you supposed that was natural given who had preceded you into the room. He walked in and out a couple of times before he noticed you after grabbing what you assumed to be the last bit of what was needed. The edges of his mouth curled into a dark grin as he took in your form. “AT LEAST YOU KNOW YOUR PLACE.” While still loud, his voice was definitely quieter than before and that alone sent shivers down your spine. It seemed as if he was quiet enough to not be heard over the buzz of conversation in the room which was understandable given two of the occupants. Edge’s words stung a little, but you didn’t let it show beyond turning your gaze to the floor. If he believed this was your place, then you doubted that he enjoyed you looking around so freely. “GOOD,” Edge sneered before you faintly heard footsteps leaving the kitchen. They were quiet enough that you probably wouldn’t have heard them if you hadn’t been listening out for them, you probably wouldn’t have heard them. Seems at least he was similar to your old master. Him and Red together were pretty similar to your old master actually. It was kind of eerie, but you supposed it made sense. It’s what you deserved after all, right? Everything was your fault, so it only made sense that you couldn’t escape punishment for your mess.

Your thoughts would have gone farther down the sinkhole that currently was your self deprecation if it weren’t for the sound of Papyrus’s voice cutting through them. “WHERE’S THE HUMAN?!” Seems as if they had need of knowledge or your whereabouts. That part of you that shovelling around dark thoughts told you it was just because they wanted to make sure their pet hadn’t run away. After all, you were nothing more than a pet to them. Humans were either pets or what monsters called workers, even though workers were basically slaves. You fell under the pet category due to your old master taking you in and training you. Apparently wild humans, which you used to be considered in this system, who were turned pets were supposed to represent a person of higher status or something? Not like you were ever really used as a status symbol. So you were basically nothing. Nothing more than the dirt on the ground outside. Your old master definitely loved reminding you of how pathetic you were compared to the monsters you were subservient to.

“OH NO! I HOPE SHE’S OKAY!” Blue’s worried tone snapped you out of your thoughts once more. He was actually worried about you? Well, you supposed with his personality, he probably really likes animals and pets and the like, so you are probably just something interesting. That and you are the new gift he just gave to his brother and the other tall skeletons, so it only made sense that he worried about your condition.

The banter between the others in the other room continued, but you tuned them out. Too bad it wasn’t as easy with the thoughts swirling in your mind. They were just so loud about how pathetic you were. How this was all your fault. How you deserved everything bad that happened to you. How you’d failed everyone. Along with so many other thoughts. You squeezed your eyes closed and brought your hands up to grab fists full of hair so that you could tug on it to try and ground yourself. It hurt, but it was nothing compared to the pain that voice kept insisting you deserved.

A pair of hands grabbing your own and your grip on your hair goes slack before your hands are pulled away from your head. You let yourself become easy to manipulate without going limp and becoming a dead weight. “sorry if i scared you there kid, but you weren’t responding to my words and i’ve heard that human hair can hurt the human when it’s pulled. so i couldn’t just sit by and watch you hurt yourself there.” Numbly, you turned you gaze up to the skeleton kneeling in front of you. Sans smiled gently down at you as he moved your hands down to your sides. “hey. edge may not want you to join us, but i really think you should come on out. i think some of the others are interested in spending this first meal together with  _ all _ of us together.” Sans stood up before offering a hand out to you. “c’mon.” You watched him for a moment, waiting for any indication that this was a trap. There’d be no other reason as to why they would want you to actually join them in the same room. Deciding that it was probably best to listen to your new masters, you stood up on your own, ignoring the hand Sans kept out for you the whole time. A glance out of the corner of your eye confirmed that there was indeed a small whoopie cushion in his palm. He had another thing coming if he believed you were going to fall for that trick. You’d dealt with it more than enough to know to watch out for it.

Sans shrugged as he put his hand back into his pocket once you were steady on your feet. With a smile he lead you into the dining room where the other skeletons were all gathered and talking away. Except for Edge and Papyrus who were standing not far from the doorway while seeming to be fighting over whether humans were allowed at the table or not. Sans walked towards the table and you paused indecisively in the doorway for a moment. Edge obviously didn’t want you at the table, and the others wanted you in the room. Perhaps being at the table was the real test? It was probably the part of this that would get you punished. Sitting out of the way in this room should be fine though, right? Deciding that that was the case, you went over to the nearest corner of the room and curled up there like you had been in the kitchen. Your gaze stayed resting on the floor as you tuned out whatever your masters were saying. It’d help pass the time. Now if only you could block out the smell of food. The last time you had eaten had definitely had to be yesterday time, but specifics eluded you. Your stomach quietly grumbled to try to push you to go eat something, but you’d gone longer without food and knew you could do fine without it.

A plate was placed in front of you and you blinked as you stared down at the full thing. Looking up you saw Stretch smiling down at you. “eat up bud.” He reached out and ruffled your hair as you stared at him dumbfounded. He chuckled as he stood back up and talked towards the table once more.

As you watched him go, you caught Hickory staring at you. You returned the stare, your own expression as non threatening as possible as his eye sockets narrowed at you in suspicion. Just as you were about to put him under the ‘probably a threat so watch your back’ category, Razz caught his brother staring. He narrowed his own eye sockets at his brother as you saw him kick the other under the table. Hickory startled subtly before turning to stare down at his own meal instead. Razz caught your gaze and sent a quick wink at you before motioning downwards with a tilt of his skull. He then turned back to his own meal and the conversation that was going on at the table as you followed his silent instructions and looked down at the plate that was brought to you.

The plate was full of food and your stomach grumbled happily at the sight. You probably wouldn’t have even touched the plate until you were left alone with it if it weren’t for the fact that you had been told to eat it. Now where to start. Though you hadn’t been given any utensils, there was steak, a salad with a messy bit of dressing spread over it which you guessed that Stretch himself had put on, and two blobs of sauces that you were pretty sure didn’t belong with the meal. You couldn’t help the small smile that graced your face at the sight of the sauces though. One was definitely ketchup, and you were pretty sure the other was honey. You couldn’t remember if you’d ever had honey, so you decided to try it. Scooping a little up with your finger, you then popped your finger into your mouth. Your nose scrunched up at the sudden sweetness reflexively. As much as you loved candy, this was definitely something. You didn’t know if you’d go for it on your own if given the choice, but you wouldn’t refuse eating it even in other circumstances where you weren’t told to eat what you were given. Rolling the flavour around on your tongue a little longer, you decided to do the same with the ketchup. You smile grew a little at the familiar flavour. Sure, it was probably an acquired taste to eat just ketchup, even with another flavour in your mouth that didn’t match it at all, but it was one that you had definitely attained.

After testing those two, you turned to the actual meal and began to dig in with your hands. You had no utensils after all. Despite the fact that Edge had made a comment about you eating like the animal you were, you were in a pretty good mood. In fact, after he had made his comment, you had dipped a bit of the steak in the ketchup and ate that. The choked, sputtering noises you got in response from him were pretty damn satisfying. So much so that you had a hard time trying to keep down the smirk that kept threatening to give away that you had done that on purpose. The meal was… nice. Your soul felt a little lighter and your stomach pleasantly full. This was the closest thing you’d had to a family meal in who knows how long. Longer than you were in this place as you and your brothers had been surviving off of snacks and quick meals or other food that was in the fridge that others gave you after your dad had… well after the incident had happened. That was definitely something that you didn’t want to think about now. Just the bare minimum of thinking about it had already dampened your mood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First chapter of the new year is somewhat longer than the past few. Whoo! Hope everyone has had a wonderful New Year and let's wish for a good year this year.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A pretty peaceful morning.

You woke up to the room you were in brightening. You sat up on the floor, which you barely registered was carpeted as your sleep-addled mind was more interested in the lack of the sound of chains. Blearily you looked around and realized that this wasn’t the room your old master had kept you locked in and it was the bedroom the skeletons had decided to give you. The bags of things they had picked up for you were still sitting off to the side of the room, with clothes by the sliding door of the closet. Last night after dinner hadn’t been too interesting. You’d meekly brought you plate into the kitchen and tried to wash it, but Razz wouldn’t let you do it and kicked you out to join the others in the living room. You had taken up the same tactic of curling up in a corner once in there and the others didn’t seem to notice you. You stayed there until the last person was heading to bed, which happened to be Blue, and when he noticed you shift in the corner he quickly fretted over you and brought you to your room. He dug out your pajamas and threw them on the bed before telling you to have a nice night and left. You’d changed like he had suggested you do before leaving, but you hadn’t wanted to ruin the bed and you hadn’t been given permission to you it. Instead you had just curled up on the white carpet in the middle of the floor with that black trench coat as a blanket and your arms as your pillows. The carpet was already a lot better to sleep on compared to a concrete floor, so you had slept pretty well.

Now to figure out why you’d woken up exactly. You were alone in the last basement room that had been available, Edge and Red also having their rooms down here. There was no sound from outside of your room though, so that couldn’t be it. That’s when you noticed the window. It was slowly getting lighter outside, meaning that it was probably sunrise. You could remember the saying about getting up at the crack of dawn, but before now you didn’t think you’d ever do it. Though perhaps it was because when you were in that room at your old master’s place, light only ever came when your old master was in the room or entering. Since that meant danger, you supposed it was only natural that you because sensitive to that sort of thing to the point of it waking you up.

What to do now though. You didn’t think you should leave the room, Blue hadn’t given you permission to leave when he brought you here. Would they be upset if you changed? What if they wanted to pick out your outfit and dress you like you were a giant doll though? As much as that would have probably made you uncomfortable before this place, things had changed. Humiliation and embarrassment were pretty hard to get out of you anymore. At least as far as you were aware they were. It’s hard to feel either when you become so numb to the treatment that causes them.

Your thoughts were spiralling a little and you knew that, but you didn’t think trying to go back to sleep would offer any results really. What if you masters were early risers? You paused before mentally correcting your statement. What if  _ some _ of your masters were early risers? You already had guesses as to which ones those would be, but you didn’t know how early they’d wake up. So, you decided against changing and opted for just putting on the jacket you had used like a blanket the night before. It was comfortable and that way you could keep the illusion of having some control while waiting for one of your new masters to come in and give you orders.

There was a clock in your room that you kept glancing over at just to see when your masters get up, or at least would come to bother you for an idea for if you could allow yourself to sleep longer in the future. It was around 4:30 in the morning when you woke up, and you could hear sounds of life coming from upstairs between 6:00 and 6:30. So you could sleep in a little more then. Maybe. You didn’t know if today was just a day off their usual sleep schedule or not, though you knew you’d learn with time. Even if there was pain in the process, you’d learn.

Excited footsteps came down that stairs, and though you could tell that there was an attempt to be quiet, the person was too excited to really be quiet. Judging by that and what you knew of your masters, this would mean that this was likely Blue or Papyrus coming down then. It couldn’t be Edge as you remembered that the other two rooms in the basement belonged to him and his brother. This was further proven by the fact that you could clearly hear Edge cursing in one of the other rooms due to how loud his voice was. If he cursed like that every morning then you would have an alarm clock at the very least. Though you doubted that would be the case, it was both a tad amusing and annoying to imagine.

Nevertheless, your real wake up call for the morning - though you didn’t need it - turned out to be Papyrus in all his morning glory, beaming bright enough to rival the sun. Your mouth twitched at the thought as you stared at his feet. He was about to enter after having quickly opened your door, luckily keeping the knob in hand so it didn’t crash into the wall behind it, but his feet paused. You supposed that he wasn’t expecting to see you on the floor there. Or awake at all for that matter. With a quick clear of his nonexistent throat however, it seems he was back on track.

“GOOD MORNING HUMAN!” he greeted you cheerily despite his previous surprise and the hour of the morning. Not like you were a stranger to early mornings. It was hard to be so when you had shared your room with the brother who was an early bird and you were usually a pretty light sleeper. Granted you’d often snuck off to your older brother’s room to go back to sleep after you were woken up, but it’d been a long time since you’d had the luxury of feeling so safe when you slept. You weren’t even sure how long you’ve been sleeping in all the time since you’ve come to this place.

After realizing that he was  hoping waiting for you to respond, you gave him a small nod. A squeal left the tall skeleton in the room with you before he bounced over and picked you up in a hug. You let yourself limply hang from his grasp as he swung you around a little in his excitement. From one o the nearby rooms you could hear Edge getting louder, though this time his noise was directed at trying to get Papyrus to quiet down. Kind of ironic given this was basically the pot calling the kettle black. His shouting at Papyrus simply had the skeleton embracing you calling out a greeting to the darker one through the walls.

You were set down when Papyrus noticed the bags of your new stuff. Your gaze wandered after him as he went over to look through them and you noticed that the bag that Red had gotten at the shelter gift shop wasn’t present. Did he have some other pet he had bought for then? Or knew somebody with one? You supposed it didn’t really matter in the end. If the bag wasn’t there, then it just wasn’t there, whatever the contents may be.

“WOWIE!~” Papyrus exclaimed as he picked a few articles of clothing out of the bags, luckily just a couple different shirts. Your mouth tilted up in a smile as eyes boggled out of his head as he found one particular shirt you were a little proud of choosing. It read ‘Bone to be wild’ on it in an ever familiar rounded white font that sat between jungle trees with a few bushes and animals at the bottom edge of the shirt. The background of the shirt itself was a faded jade colour, fitting the brighter green leaves of the jungle theme nicely enough. “HUMAN! YOU HAVE ALREADY BEEN TAINTED AND YOU’VE BARELY KNOWN THE LAZYBONES MONSTERS THAT LIVE IN THIS HOUSEHOLD! HOW COULD SUCH A DISASTER BE?!” You could hear the hint of a joking tone in Papyrus’s words and could see a faintly fond smile tugging at the corners of his own mouth. Seemed he did enjoy the joke too. That or he was thinking about something that was making him smile. Probably his brother if the latter was true. Maybe both were true. Only he would know.

He put the shirt down before looking through more of your clothes. “HUMAN, DO YOU HAVE A PREFERENCE OF WHAT YOU WANT TO WEAR?” Papyrus glanced over his shoulder at you. You simply blinked as you watched him, needing a moment to realize that he actually seemed to care about what you wanted. Just as you were about to shake your head so that he could have his fun picking out your clothes, he managed to find the bag full of undergarments. You froze as his face turned stare at the contents of the bag in confusion. “WHAT ARE THESE?” You weren’t exactly sure how to feel as he pulled some from the bag. You definitely couldn’t think of how to let Papyrus know that you needed those, especially with the skeptical look he was throwing the undergarments. Luckily you could go without putting new ones on since you had a cloth bra wrapped snugly around your chest that would work fine in place of one of the usual bras, and as long as your underwear wasn’t dirty, you had not qualms about staying in them as it was better to be wearing something than nothing. Especially when that something wasn’t grossly dirty.

After a while, Papyrus eventually left the undergarments alone and went about putting together some outfits he liked. “WHILE I FEAR THAT NONE OF THESE WILL HAVE US MATCH LIKE YOUR OUTFIT FROM YESTERDAY, I’M SURE YOU’LL FIND THESE OKAY AS WELL.” He puffed out his chest a little, seeming proud of himself for his choices. A part of you a little sad he didn’t just go for a full on pose, but you obviously kept that to yourself. Looking over the outfits you had to admit that they looked pretty good. The first had greens with yellows with bits of brown sprinkled in, and the second with white and pastel colours. You weren’t sure if Papyrus was expecting you to pick one over the other, but you knew that you’d need to change into them either way.

You long coat came off first, and you gently laid that on the bed next to the clothes that Papyrus had picked out and put there to display them to you. Then you grabbed onto the bottom of your shirt and began to pull the loose thing off. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Papyrus’s high pitched squeal had you pause while looking over at him. The tall skeleton was staring at you from between his fingers as a bright orange glow could be seen from underneath. “IT’S INDECENT!!! YOU COULD HAVE WAITED FOR ME TO TURN AROUND AT THE VERY LEAST!!” As he turned around you stared blankly at his form. It took you a moment to remember that most monsters weren’t like your old master and friends who had way too much fun seeing you undress, and then stay naked once your clothes were gone among other things. Originally your old master had done it to try and mortify you, and it had worked pretty well, especially when your original clothes had been literally ripped from your body when you refused to strip.

Seeing as the flustered skeleton was now looking away, you continued to change. You just dropped the pajamas off to the side before grabbing the green and yellow outfit to change into. A memory tried to flicker into your mind, but you quickly pushed it away. You had an idea of what it wanted to show you, and you didn’t want to relive that even as the colours made you pause with your hands on the fabric. You closed your eyes and let out a slow breath. That helped a little with the knot that had loosely formed in your stomach and twisted at your soul.

With that out of the way you began to put on the outfit. The top of the dress which was an emerald green was vaguely form fitting and a simple brown belt went around your waist just above where the skirt started and the fabric became loose and flowed a little. The colour fading from that emerald to a forest green down the length of the skirt of it, which ended just above your knees. Beneath the dress you wore dark brown leggings with simple black socks to go along. Since the dress was sleeveless, a small vibrant yellow sweater that was rounded in the back and ended by your mid-back was a part of the ensemble. The sleeves of the sweater still reaching all the way down your arms even if the part around your torso was short. Then there was a dark green headband that sat in your hair with a bright yellow flower on it. At least the thing couldn’t talk.

When you were done putting it on, you pursed your lips and shrugged after twisting back and forth to get a feel for the flowiness of the skirt. Not what you would have worn before this place - you’d preferred sweatpants, fuzzy socks, and sweaters since they kept you warm - but you could deal with it just fine. You looked pretty nice at least. A part of you wondered what your old self would think before the right side of your mouth lifted in a smile at her adamant refusal to believe that dresses were a comfortable bit of clothing and that she should wear anything other than her preferred attire. This had your mind wandering towards what your family might think, but you quickly steered your thoughts away from that. Instead you schooled you expressed before reaching out to touch Papyrus gently.

The large skeleton startled, but when he turned around his grin was just so big and genuine that it warmed your soul and made it flutter happily. He helped you straighten your sweater and headband a little more while complimenting how you looked in the outfit. His joy as just so contagious that even with your attempts to keep your face emotionless, a little smile came out anyway. He seemed quite happy to see the smile too, which only made it wider. Papyrus was such a kind soul and you couldn’t help but feel so at ease with him so quickly.

After he deemed you presentable, he lead you upstairs to the kitchen where Blue was finishing up making breakfast. There were some bar stools under an overhang in the counter and they sat you down on one of those before giving you a plate, with actual utensils this time, of bacon, eggs, and toast. The typical breakfast food. Since there were four stools and you were on one of the middle ones, Papyrus and Blue joined you to eat their breakfast while sitting on either side of you. Your soul had twisted nervously at how you seemed almost like an equal like this, but their lack of caring and the good smelling food in front of you had you begin to not really care yourself. You ate what you had been given, bacon and eggs first, and saving the toast to slowly munch on afterwards in case you felt pretty full since large meals on a regular basis like this was still pretty new to you again after however long you’ve been in this place. The two skeletons chatted over you, sure, but they tried to make you feel included too. It was nice. Like you had a family again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit shorter than I would like, but at least I got a chapter out. I really do want to try to be consistent with these. I'll shoot for the next one to be longer and that's all I can do really. Besides the fact I got so sick I couldn't really focus on anything over this past week, it's just a good breaking spot too before we start something fun I've been waiting to write for a while now.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How much trouble can come from an obstacle course under Razz's watch? Well more than just the obstacle course apparently.

You, Blue, and Papyrus were done and out of the kitchen before anybody else got their for their own food. You’d caught sight of Edge coming up the stairs as the two brought you to the living room, but that was about it. The two had turned on the television and were watching a special that had both of their favourite performers on it. They had given you permission to do what you wanted and to get comfortable, so you’d wandered over to the piano. It had been cleaned recently enough that it hadn’t yet gathered any dust, and whoever had last used it had left the bench out. You slid right onto the shiny surface of the bench before lifting your hands to ghost your fingers over the keys. You only knew a few basic things on the piano from an old friend of yours who loved to play. Her grand piano had been pretty beaten up when she found it, but somehow you, her, and one of your brothers who was also friends with her had managed to convince your father to help you figure out how to fix it. She’d gone off and learned piano on her own after the repairs were finished and she taught you what she could. While you loved music, learning piano was kind of difficult with all the different keys and the need of both hands to be used. You found it much easier to do tasks that required only one hand to do as it was just easier to use your dominant hand for things.

Your revere over the pristine piano was broken when Hickory placed his hand on your shoulder. You had jumped and spun in a startled manner as you acted on older instincts than the ones instilled into you by your old master. Amusement danced in the taller skeleton’s sockets, but his face remained pretty neutral. “come.” That one word was enough for you to slide off the bench to follow, but it didn’t hold enough force or urgency that you didn’t spend time to carefully push the bench under the piano a bit more so that it would be out of the way. Hickory seemed a bit impatient and wanted you to hurry, but he said nothing, and so you didn’t change how you were doing things.

Once you were done he lead you through the back door and into the yard you hadn’t yet had a chance to look at. You paused in the doorway as you took in the spectacle that you weren’t sure how you missed seeing through the windows. A large obstacle course was set up in the spacious backyard that suggested that this was a richer neighbourhood if the size of the house hadn’t already told you that. There were actual platforms set up, balance beams, and you were pretty sure that a few of those strange looking devices on the ground where flamethrowers and places for spikes, among the usual obstacle course objects of tires in a row, and short hurdles to get over. There was also a wall with a rope hanging down the edge of it and it was beginning to make you wonder if they just had this set up year round. Surely it would get in the way of other things? Though you had a feeling if they kept it around that it got incorporated into a lot of the things they did outside. It was less of a questions of why and more a question of how at this point.

Shaking these thoughts from your mind, you continued after Hickory. Razz seemed to be fiddling with part of the course and was much to absorbed into it to notice the two of you coming over to him. To help him out a bit, you purposefully dragged your feet and made noise. A startled reaction shook his form faintly, and you would have missed it if you weren’t looking at him so intently. You let your gaze drop to the grass beneath you as he stood and turned while Hickory also turned his body towards you. As interested as you were in the greenery poking up from the ground like fur from skin, you knew you should pay attention to whatever was wanted of you.

“AHA! I COULD EASILY HEAR…” Razz trailed off suddenly, making you try to see him without moving your head. You could see the curve of his mouth in a frown, but you didn’t get why. “WHERE ARE YOUR BOOTS?” You blinked as you realized you hadn’t thought to grab them while following Hickory, too caught up in the command to follow to even have the thought of deviating for another task pop into your head. Not like you often remembered that footwear existed anymore since you’d been without it for so long. “MUTT! GO FETCH HER BOOTS. THEY SHOULD BE DOWN WITH HER THINGS IN THE ROOM THAT IS NOW HER LIVING SPACE.”

“yes, m’lord,” came the response from Hickory before the tall skeleton disappeared. You couldn’t help but turn you head to look at the spot where he had been moments before. So he could teleport too. Somehow, you hadn’t expected that, though a part of you chided you and said that it should have been obvious. Perhaps it did make sense, but that was a train of thought for another time as you wanted to keep your attention on the world around you just in case.

Razz was mumbling to himself as he stared down at the part he had been fiddling with before before he nodded. “THAT SEEMS TO MEET MY HIGH STANDARDS. WHICH I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW, HUMAN, ARE VERY HIGH. ANYWAYS, MY BROTHER SHOULD BE BACK SOON ENOUGH SO PREPARE YOURSELF FOR THE TRIALS THAT AWAIT YOU ONCE YOU’VE BEEN GIVEN PROPER FOOTWEAR SO THAT YOU MAY FAIRLY PARTAKE IN THIS CHALLENGE.” That peaked your interest and you found yourself looking up at Razz despite the constant drilling of your old master about looking at monsters who you were constantly told were above you. He puffed out his chest proudly at your reaction, so you supposed it was a good thing. “INTERESTED? OF COURSE YOU ARE! THIS WAS A CHALLENGE PUT TOGETHER BY THE CUNNING RAZZBERRY AFTER ALL! YOU WILL NO DOUBT WISH TO PERFORM YOUR BEST IN THIS ARDUOUS CONCOCTION SO THAT YOU MIGHT EARN MY PRAISE!” The way one of his hands went to his chest, the other to his him, and he closed his eyes in a proud expression had your soul twist in a strange way. On one hand, the familiarity of the gesture made your heart hurt, and on the other the familiarity of it calmed you. Either way you were still curious about just what Razz was going on about.

The feeling of magic displacing air nearby had you send your flick your gaze over in that direction. Hickory reappeared in the same place he had been before where the air had been pushed out of the way by the magic. If you remembered the details correctly, magic pulled the air out of the way so that you could pop into existence without ending up being in anything and then it put that air where you came from to help with the displacement caused by your disappearance over there. Or something like that. That’s why hair and clothes could flutter around when teleporting, though it really mattered more on the type of teleportation for that sort of effect. The type the skeletons around you have used has been a very exact input for the output kind, so it was a very efficient kind of teleportation magic. The flashy teleportation magic that ended up causing winds to whip up around the user was just really inefficient magic use with the excess magic being turned into energy that influenced the air around the user. Any glowing effect was caused by this sort of inefficient magic use as well. Of course, magic theory was likely not why you were here, so you could leave thinking about it again until some later date. Not like you had much of a liberty to explore magic theory anymore, not since ending up in this place.

A small sigh left you before you noticed the two skeletons looking at you and froze. “HUMAN?” Was it your imagination, or did Razz look genuinely worried? Hickory’s intrigued face you could believe, but the faint worry that was only perceptible to you since you knew how to read skulls was something you were having a hard time believing your eyes about. The way he acted didn’t usually hint towards him having this sort of soft spot for a human like you, so it was strange to say the least. You blinked as you tried to figure out why they would be staring at you before you saw the boots that had been bought for you in Hickory’s grasp. You forced down the urge to put your hand to your face as the feeling of stupidity washed over you about how you could forget already because of your zoning out.

“y’know how to put these on, right?” Hickory snickered a little as he walked closer to you and you held back the glare you wanted to send by reverting to that blank face while nodding. The small grin on Hickory’s face fell at your lack of emotional response, but he put the boots by your feet anyway. You sat down on the ground and began to put them on. While footwear was still a strange feeling to you, you were glad you had at least gotten to pick which ones you wanted.

Standing, you kept your gaze on your feet as you shifted your weight from one to the other to try and adjust to the new footwear quicker. Unfortunately, since they were new boots, you also still had to wear them in so that you could feel more comfortable in them now as well. No way to get used to them like using them though. At least they weren’t already worn in to fit somebody whose feet were so different from yours that it hurt. That wasn’t a pleasant feeling, obviously.

Razz cleared his throat and you looked up at him. “NOW THAT YOU ARE PROPERLY EQUIPPED…” He pointed one finger out towards you in one of those poses you’d see in some comic book or one of those anime when somebody challenges somebody else. It was strange to see it reenacted in real life though. “HUMAN! PREPARE YOURSELF FOR THE TRIAL THAT I HAVE PREPARED FOR YOU!! IT-!”

“OH!!” An excited gasp came from closer to the house behind you. It sounded like Blue. “YOU GET UP THE OBSTACLE COURSE AGAIN??” He sounded excited, and you could hear Papyrus letting out an excited gasp from behind you as well.

“WOWIE!! IS THIS A FRIENDSHIP EXERCISE FOR THE HUMAN?” You… weren’t exactly sure what else you should have expected from Papyrus, but somehow this wasn’t it.

Razz sighed with a small groan and glared at the others, his arms now crossed over his chest as an irritated gleam was in his eye lights which likely from being interrupted as he was monologuing. “THIS IS A TRIAL FOR THE HUMAN TO SHOWCASE HER SKILLS TO YOU MISERABLE LOT!!” Trial? Skills? What was he going on about and where did this idea even come from? You mind was working hard to try and fit the puzzle pieces together, but you still knew too little about the monster before to be able to make any proper observations since your sample size when it came to interactions with him was still much too small. The sharp toothed skeleton then turned his attention to you. “HUMAN! YOU ARE TO ATTEMPT THIS COURSE WITH THE MOST BRAVADO YOU CAN MANAGE! AVOID GETTING HIT AND DO NOT HOLD BACK!!” Why would he- You paused and went stiff as you remembered what you had done the first time you had met him. This wasn’t a result of  _ that _ was it? This was already sounding like a bad idea, but you knew an order when you heard one and Razz’s words definitely weren’t up for debate even if you would verbally debate with him about that. You nodded your head to show your understanding of Razz’s words and he smiled before he pat your head. “DON’T HOLD BACK!” He demanded as he lead you over to where the beginning was.

“YOU CAN DO IT HUMAN!” Cheers came from the two by the house. You didn’t mean to ignore them, but you’d been ordered to give your all, so you had to try and get the advantage of knowing what was to come before you took off. That way you could at least get yourself a vague strategy. The quieter tones of what was probably at least one of their brothers coming out reached your ears, but still you focused on the course. Your eyes dashed from one to the next, mapping out a plan of attack.

You got down low as you nodded to yourself, preparing yourself for take off. Razz seemed satisfied for this as he called out from the center of the course for you to start. You took off in a quick dash, pacing yourself so that you would have enough energy to keep going quickly throughout the course, but making sure to push it so you would go as fast as possible while keeping that energy to complete it quickly. If Razz wanted you to not hold back, you’d give it all you had in the physical department. There were still things you’d rather hold back on, but he had no idea it existed, so you should be fine to not use it to complete this activity.

Gasps came from by the house and a smile worked its way onto your face. Guess they didn’t expect this from you, though you couldn’t blame them. You cleared the low hurdles without missing a step and then came taller ones. You also cleared those, but you nearly knocked down the last one after hitting it with your foot while on the way over. There was no noise of it hitting the ground, so you assumed it was still standing. However there was no time to dwell on that as you had to keep going. Things were going smoothly and you had to quietly thank the time you’d spent with one of your brothers and shared friend. Keeping up with their seemingly endless energy had given you plenty of endurance, and running around in environments that were probably actually too dangerous for children had kept you sharp on your feet. When rocks could give out under you as soon as you put your weight on them, you had to learn to be quick about adjusting to your surroundings and how to get through.

After jumping off of the balance beam to make a dash across a clear section to get to the wall with the rope, you were getting ready to figure out how far up you could go before you would need to grab the rope in order to propel yourself the highest. You’d never been good with heights, or climbings either for that matter. It was then that you felt it before you saw it. The feeling of offensive magic building up to form an attack from behind you. A weak one, but being hurt was not going to help you complete this course. You dodged to your left just in time to watch the bone construct go flying past you where you’d been mere moments before. You could hear surprised gasps from back by the house, and arguing too, but you didn’t pay any mind to what they were saying. You had bigger problems in the form of dodging more bones while still trying to complete this course. Razz wanted you to give your all? You’d show him that you couldn’t be so easily stopped by a handful of bone attacks getting thrown at you since you could dodge, even as they sprouted up just before your feet in an attempt to trip you, you’d still dodge them. Perhaps having learned to sense magic attacks before they happened so you could take preemptive counter measures was a good use of time after all. You’d never thought you’d have to use it when you had learned it. It was just a skill to pick up because you could.

As you dodged around a wall of bones that popped up in front of you, you wondered how you were going to scale that wall with all these bone constructs that kept coming. It seemed pretty obvious that Razz wasn’t going to stop, but you knew a couple of these weren’t his either. They didn’t match the magic you felt coming from his direction. In fact they felt kind of like the small excess feeling of Hickory’s magic from his teleportation early, which would make sense since he seemed to do whatever he needed to help his brother or make his brother happy.

You finally tuned into what Razz was saying after he repeated it for who knows how many times it’d been at this point since you’d been so lost in your focus. “HUMAN! FORGET ABOUT COMPLETING THE REST OF THE COURSE FOR NOW! NOW, YOUR CHALLENGE IS TO DEFEAT ME IN BATTLE!” This caused you to stumble and fall onto the ground. Laughter came from the skeleton in the middle of the area less at you and more to sound evil. Luckily you managed to dodge the short wave of spikes that rose up out of the ground always behind where you’d been. While there was a reprieve in the bones for a moment, you quickly clamored to your feet and turned to look at Razz. There was no hint that his proclamation for you to fight him was just to mess with you. He seemed dead serious about it if the manic grin on his face was anything to go by as he summoned more bone constructs to fly at you. You dodged to the best of your ability, yet still a few managed to graze you, though considering you could get impaled by most of these, you were considering that a victory on your part so far.

It was a little strange that no encounter had started despite Razz’s repeated proclamations of wanting to fight you, but perhaps battle etiquette was different in this place? Maybe this was just considered training rather than a mock encounter or a proper one. As Razz shouted once more for you to quit dodging and just fight him, you reached out to one of the flurry of bones rushing past you at this time. You dodged it with the same easy as the others, and focused on this one in particular as you reached out to grab it. The magic of the shorter skeleton pushed against you as you reached out, but you managed to nullify it enough to make it safe for you to grab. It felt a little different from what you were used to, but you could use this as a good close ranged combat item. The only problem there was that you’d have to get close while Razzy - and now doubt Hickory as well - tried to use ranged attacks to keep you from achieving victory. You’d have to work around their moves, but being able to sense them before they got to you was an advantage for you and you’d need to take advantage of that. Your newly acquired weapon could also be used to your advantage elsewhere if you really needed the opportunity.

Happy laughter came from Razz’s direction not long after the attack was grabbed. “GOOD HUMAN! NOW FIGHT ME LIKE I KNOW YOU CAN!” He grinned as he summoned a few more attacks around him and sent them out towards you. Naturally, you dodged the attacks, but you hesitated in your running towards the wall. He seemed to genuinely want you to fight him, and you didn’t know if this was a really good act to try and distract you from your original order, or if it was actually a new order. If this was all set up because of the fact that you had flipped him and Red when you had met them, then it was very likely that he really wanted to see you fight. So the question of attempting the wall was wavering in your mind.

With a sigh you decided to just listen to the new order and changed your direction to go after Razz. The others will still yelling their protests, but they never became anything more than background noise as you dodged between, around, over, and under attacks that came your way. It seemed now that you were actually going after Razz, any attacks Hickory sent were merely to keep you progressing towards his brother so you’d have an actual fight without interfering himself. How noble of him, you supposed, letting his brother fight a human that could do a lot of damage if the intent to hurt or kill was there. Not that you would ever want to hurt these guys since they hadn’t done anything to you - except maybe a good smack to try and work it into Red and Edge that they couldn’t just mess with you however they wanted and get away with it. Though it wasn’t like you’d act on any want to harm anyway. You’d get in a lot of trouble for that. You could be killed, or ‘put down’ as your old master had called it, if you were thought of as too dangerous to monsters. That would have been deterrent enough if you hadn’t already loved monsters enough that you’d even want to hurt them despite the fear of monster your old master had instilled in you. The only exceptions so far that you could remember were your old master, Edge, and Red, though the latter two were more of a way to try and keep them from getting you in the future while the former was more to get payback for everything that had happened to you while you had been stuck in that room.

You were nearing Razz’s position, but you still didn’t have a plan of attack. That worried you a little, but improvisation would have to work anyway since you knew nothing about how he dealt with close range fighting. So you were going in blind either way. You didn’t want to have to hurt him though. Perhaps keeping him down for a count like in those practise matches could work to make him admit defeat? It was worth a try. So you ran around the skeleton that was throwing attacks at you while waiting for an opening. When one popped up, you rushed towards Razz.

Your steps only faltered when you felt the weight of gravity increase upon you. Being used to the feeling from practise matches in the past, you used the bone you’d take from Razz to vault your way through the air into the skeleton since you could not longer jump. Razz seemed taken aback by your maneuver and tried to move out of the way, but his shock managed to hold him in place long enough for you to hit him and for your momentum to knock the two of you to the ground. You landed on top of him and quickly pinned down his arms with one hand while the other continued to hold your temporary weapon. After you had adjusted so that the gravity magic on your soul helped keep you both pinned, you grinned victoriously at the baffled face of the skeleton beneath you. Slowly you began to tap the bone on the ground in a countdown like you were used to hearing called out loud. Razz’s sockets narrowed in confusion beneath you before suddenly widening farther than you ever thought you’d see. He quickly went about flailing about harder beneath you, but his physical struggle wasn’t enough to push you off with the excess weight and it seemed he had forgotten that his magic was an option as he struggled, or perhaps he didn’t want to hurt you. Either way you weren’t getting bones shoved through you as you tapped your own against the ground.

When your count hit ten, he went limp and you rolled off with a small laugh bubbling up from you. You spread out taking in the feeling of grass beneath you that came with sweet victory and this was the first time you’d gotten to relish in the feeling since your freedom. It was nice. A satisfied smile sat on your face as you watched the few clouds dotting the sky move. That was interesting, you’d never known clouds moved like that. It was really pretty to watch.

Razz sat up beside you, and despite the attempt at an indifferent look on his face, it was pretty obvious that he was happy too. The way his eye lights sparkled was the most obvious indicator of the fact. “ALRIGHT HUMAN. I SUPPOSE SOME PRAISE IS IN ORDER FOR YOU WINNING THIS SPAR. SO… GOOD JOB HUMAN! YOU DID WELL!” You could feel your smile widen at the way his face lit up with a hint of a blush as he spoke. This was good. This was familiar. Perhaps you could allow yourself to be a bit looser here. Especially if somebody like Razz would praise you for your ability to fight him instead of getting upset and trying to hurt you back multiple times over what you’d done to him. Not like you’d done much, but it seemed he hadn’t been expecting the painless take down. Painless except for the crash when you both went down to the ground, but there was no intended harm so he should be relatively fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fighting scene ended up not being as good in the fighting aspect as I would have liked, but I suppose that wasn't the focus of the scene so it's alright. This came out a little on the later side today, but I just couldn't decide where to end the chapter properly.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The aftermath of you tackling Razz.

“SANS! LET THE HUMAN GO!!” You turned your gaze over towards the house curiously to see Sans with his right eye blank while his left one was flashing between a light blue and yellow as he stared at you. You smile fell quickly and went back into a blank expression as you realized he was the one to have used gravity magic on you during the battle. You hadn’t even thought about while you were focusing on Razz, but now that all of that was over you realized that the weight on your soul was still present and was keeping you pushed into the ground while feeling that familiar yet foreign feeling magic gripped onto your soul with a vice grip that seemed worried or almost fearful. Strange. Had he popped up while you were rushing Razz and thought you were going to hurt him? It would make sense with the way a human struck with the desire to hurt others could do real damage. Though shouldn’t he let go now then? Or did he still think you were a threat? You hadn’t shown any other threatening behaviour, so if he thought you were a threat he was basing it off of very little. Unless he thought it was an act? Only he knew.

Sans was staring at you despite Blue and Papyrus trying to convince him to let you go. Stretch even tried to calm him down, but Sans quietly mumbled something to him and Stretch just sighed and backed off. You couldn’t see Hickory anywhere, and despite both Red - who was sweating nervously while staring at you - and Edge standing in the doorway, neither seemed inclined to help you either. You had basically accepted that your fate was being on the ground when Razz let out an annoyed sound from behind you. “LET THE HUMAN GO, SANS.” You blinked and turned your head to look at him. He was focused on Sans, but you could still see some colour on his cheekbones. You felt your face soften and your soul flutter happily at all the skeletons that had come to your aid. It was nice to feel appreciated, even if they only ever ended up appreciating you as a pet.

“fine…” Sans grumbled just loud enough so that you could here him from where he stood before you heard Papyrus muttering about lazybones and disappearing at bad moments. You took a deep breath when you felt the weight lift. Gravity magic being used on your soul was definitely not one of those feelings you enjoyed.

Stretch was suddenly in your face and you paused to blankly stare at the faintly noticeable furrow of his eyes that was a mix of worry, confusion, and warriness. The warriness you could understand, you did just fling yourself towards Razz with little hesitation while he was demanding that you fight him after all. “hey there bud. you…” Stretch trailed off, probably trying to figure out how to word what he wanted to say.

Before he could, Blue and Papyrus were suddenly in your line of sight. “HUMAN!” Blue wasn’t bouncing with energy like Papyrus, and his gaze was more curious than the taller skeleton’s too. “WHERE DID YOU LEARN TO FIGHT LIKE THAT?” You were almost certain that you saw a hint of worry in Blue’s expression. It took you a moment to connect that worry to the question. It was a little strange feeling when it hit you that since you were human, you shouldn’t know how to fight that well unless you were trained for it, and humans shouldn’t be trained to fight as they were pets or workers.

“I CAN’T WAIT TO TELL UNDYNE ABOUT HOW COOL OUR NEW HUMAN IS!!” Papyrus seemed lost in his own little world, though you couldn’t fault him if he was caught up thinking about friends. Friends were great. Too bad you had none of yours around anymore. Hopefully they were all doing okay for themselves, wherever they were. They had to be doing better than you at the very least.

You closed your eyes with a sigh as you thought about your friends only to have them shoot open again when you felt yourself being picked up. Stretched smiled down at you gently as he patted your shoulders with the hand supporting them as he brought you to his chest. With the way he picked you up, your legs reacted on learned instinct and wrapped around his waist while the rest of you went kind of limp in his grasp. He made a surprised noise as you shifted in his grasp because of this before he caught you and corrected his hold so you wouldn’t slide out of his grasp again. He gently nudged your arms up around his neck to help keep you to him. “whoa there bud. just gonna carry you to the house to check for any injuries. i hear that humans can be pretty fragile sometimes.” A part of you wanted to scoff and tell him that you were plenty durable, while another part was touched that he was worried. It made your soul a little lighter that there seemed to be so much care for you, even if they didn’t care for the real you that was hidden behind the mask of a good pet that they couldn’t even see.

You melted into his hold despite not meaning to. It really reminded you of how your father would carry you when you had started to fall asleep from being out past your bedtime while with your father at his work because he was still a little wary of leaving you on your own with those outside of your family yet. You fought down a smile at the thought of your older brother pretending he suddenly couldn’t walk for any of the many reasons he came up with over his attempts to also get carried home on days that he was with the two of you for whatever reason. Your other brother would often be half asleep waiting for the rest of you to pick him up from the one your father had watch him while he was out. Often your older brother would be with him instead of with the two of you and he would be fast asleep by the time you got there. Those days were long gone though, and now you just had these skeletons who had taken you in as a pet instead.

A small sigh left you as you let your face dip into Stretch’s shoulder as you focused on his moments instead of your own thoughts. On top of the feeling of him shuffling along, you could feel his chest rising and falling in quick motions and you quickly realised that he was chuckling quietly and that it was likely at your behaviour. You didn’t even have it in you to lift your head and try to pull away to save yourself from more embarrassment somehow. You didn’t even react to the hint of embarrassment that wanted to come up. After all you’d been through, embarrassment was just another one of those emotions you didn’t even bother with anymore since it would make your old master push on those sorts of things more and make it worse for you. Quickly, you pushed those thoughts away and tried to focus on other things instead. You tilted your head into Stretch’s shoulder more as you realized that he smelt sweet, like a giant walking pile of sugary goods. Perhaps like the confectionaries that you always managed to get pretty cheap from the person you knew who sold them in the same area as where your dad used to work. It used to baffle everyone around you at how you could get the reduced prices, or even get some things for free from her as she was known as one of those people who watches every last coin and it was impossible to shortchange her. Whatever the reason had been, you hadn’t cared back then because she had made such good treats. A frown was pressing at your lips as you felt a pang of homesickness wash over you. It’d been so long since you’d last felt this feeling that you had come to think that all of you had just come to accept your situation. Turns out that wasn’t the case as your soul let out waves of the feeling that were strong enough that you wouldn’t be surprised if the monsters around you, or at least Stretch, could feel it. If the skeleton carrying you felt the difference in the aura your soul was giving off, he made no mention of it.

Stretch just silently carried you until he sat down on the couch and shifted your position so that your legs wouldn’t be stuck between him and the couch. Confusion began to pound through you that fought with the homesickness yet couldn’t drown it out. Either way, you weren’t sure why Stretch was just sitting you down here, or why he wasn’t doing anything. Hadn’t he mentioned patching you up? If so, why hadn’t he instructed you on how to move so he could deal with whatever had caused him to bring you here?

You turned your head to look at him, but he wasn’t looking down at you. He was looking over at the doorway. Your eyes moved to follow his line of sight in response. Blue and Papyrus were talking in and talking with animated hand gestures. “hey bro.” Blue perked at hearing his brother refer to him.

“YES BROTHER?”

“could you go get that first aid kit that we have around in case of emergencies?”

Both Blue and Papyrus looked confused at the request. “SURELY YOU COULD JUST HEAL HER?” Papyrus suggested.

Blue nodded along. “IF YOU DON’T THINK YOU CAN HEAL HER, I CAN DO IT FOR YOU!”

You could feel Stretch chuckle lightly beneath you before he shook his head. “sorry bro, but healing magic hasn’t been tested on humans and we don’t know what sort of effects it could have on them.” Your brows furrowed at this. You’d been healed before. Granted, it was before this place, but surely  _ somebody _ would have tried healing a human here before now? Berry and Papyrus also seemed confused by this statement. How could you get across to them that you’d be fine with being healed? Wait! Your dress was green! This was perfect!

You let out a small noise as you wiggled on Stretch’s lap to get your arms to where they could reach the hem of your dress. A noise of confusion left Stretch, and glancing over at where the other two were, you could see that they had their gazes fixed on you curiously as well. As you reached out the hem of your skirt, you noticed that your hands were red and dirty from scrambling to get up earlier and then grabbing that bone among other things that you just weren’t used to doing anymore. With a plan in mind, you pulled the skirt of the dress up a little and placed one hand down, palm up so they could see the irritated skin. Then you pulled the green of the skirt down over your hand to imitate the green magic that was healing magic. You looked up to see if any of them had managed to understand your vague attempt to say it was okay to heal you.

Blue’s face was what you expected, confusion evident in every feature. Papyrus on the other hand had an intense thinking face on as if he was staring at a puzzle. Suddenly his head popped up and he straightened to stand as tall as he could with a big grin on his face. “OH! OKAY HUMAN! STRETCH, YOU CAN HEAL HER!”

“what?” Stretch’s voice was full of confusion at Papyrus’s statement.

“WELL GREEN IS THE COLOUR OF HEALING MAGIC, SO SHE USED HER DRESS OVER HER HAND TO SHOW THE MAGIC BEING USED ON HER!” You blinked. How had Papyrus figured that out so easily? Perhaps it was all the puzzles he did. Visual more so than numerical puzzles.

“pap, how did-?” Seems like you weren’t the only one confused.

“NATURALLY I JUST PUT MY GRAND SET OF DEDUCTION SKILLS TO GOOD USE!” Papyrus posed as he laughed proudly. A smile twitched onto your face.

Blue seemed in awe of Papyrus as he stared at the taller skeleton with stars in his sockets. “WHOA! THAT’S AMAZING PAPYRUS! YOU REALLY ARE GREAT!” Papyrus got a slight flush on his face at the praise and you internally cooed over how happy he looked.

“i really don’t think this is a good idea…” Stretch sounded unsure.

“NONSENSE! IF THE HUMAN KNOWS ABOUT HEALING MAGIC, THEN SURELY SHE’S BEEN HEALED BEFORE, SO IT MUST BE FINE!” Papyrus waved off Stretch’s worry and strode over with a big grin on his face. “HUMAN, MAY I HEAL YOU?” He gently took one of your hands in his as he kneeled before you. You nodded and couldn’t fight the smile on your face at the gentle grip he used.

“pap, wa-” Stretch didn’t get to finish his thought before the gentle warmth of healing magic began to flow through you. You closed your eyes and relaxed at the feel of it soothing aches you didn’t even realize you had. It was nice and you felt truly relaxed for the first time since you had met your old master. You felt Stretch’s arms coming up to support you better as you basically melted into his hold with how good it felt. Muscles that you’d grown used to having constantly tense were finally relaxing and it was great. Your eyes felt heavy as you let yourself feel at peace with the soothing waves washing over you.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lunch, a 'chat,' and a dream.

You must have fallen asleep while being healed, because you woke up to Stretch shifting beneath you as Papyrus called out about lunch being ready. Without thinking, you stretched and let yourself yawn widely. A grunt left you as you heard a few pops up your spine and you bit back an apology at the discomfort those likely caused the skeleton beneath you. He didn’t say anything about what you did as he gave a yawn of his own. The two of you sat together a little while longer before you heard a disgruntled growl from not too far away. Glancing over, Edge was glaring in the direction of the two of you and you swear you heard him mumble about the two of you being lazybones. Stretch chuckled at that before pushing you gently. “guess we better get some food, huh?” He smiled down at you. “that way we can both be lazybones on full stomachs.”

Honestly, you weren’t really hungry. Not after everything else you’d been eating since getting here, especially not with the regularity of it yet. However this wasn’t about what you wanted. It was lunchtime and you were expected to join the others for lunch - for whatever odd reason they still wanted their pet to join them for meals. A part of your voiced the idea that they wanted you visible to help show of their status in order to be able to own a human, yet another part of you squashed that. That sentimental side you’d been forcing down along with your emotional responses in general.

Lunch was a simple pasta salad. While Papyrus had partially pulled out a chair for you and asked you to sit, you’d shrunk into yourself and pulled into the nearest corner to sit instead. Even if you were around for show, you still weren’t equal to your masters and you couldn’t share the paranoid part of you that saw the gesture as anything but a test. Papyrus’s sadded frown proved that wrong, yet you still couldn’t bring yourself to leave your corner seat. You head didn’t even lift from the floor and your plate until the end of the meal after Edge sent you a pretty harsh glance and both Red and Hickory were scrutinizing you pretty critically as well. While Edge’s behaviour you were coming to think was just something that would persist, you were pretty sure the looks you were getting from the other two were to do with your display of skill earlier with the obstacle course and then Razz’s orders for you to fight him only for you to tackle him despite the blue magic on your soul. Speaking of that obstacle course, Sans seemed to be flat out ignoring you. Seems he was still upset over that whole mess. Out of the four of them, it was Sans’s complete avoidance of even acknowledging you that caused your soul to let out a few painful beats as he called for him to at least send a look your way. Even if he had hate in his sockets, surely that was better than him acting as if you didn’t exist at all, right? Both options kind of sucked, but at least with the hate directed at you, you’d be able to know what he was thinking about you. As it was, he could be thinking anything about you and you’d never truly know and that was part of what was causing your soul so much distress. That, coupled with how much good food you’d been getting so far in this household had you not really hungry as your stomach was also tying in knots to reflect the state of your soul. You downed a little food since something was better than nothing, but for the most part you just played at it with the fork you’d been given instead. Papyrus had eventually taken your plate with a worried look evident on his face.

You’d ignored the worried looks as you stood, keeping your gaze cast downward. With your soul in a bit of chaos, you were reverting to autopilot instead. That entailed keeping your head down and staying out of the way - not bothering to do anything really - until you were told to. Even as the others began to leave, Blue running off to help Papyrus when the taller of the two finally went to put the last of the dishes in the kitchen and wash them. Sans just straight up teleported out of the room when he was done, and you couldn’t help but feel that it was because he didn’t want to be around you longer than he had to be. Edge, Red, and Hickory were quick to part ways as well, while Razz hesitated before following his brother out. That left just you and Stretch in the room together and he seemed a little unsure of what to say or do. Despite the relaxed nature his stance would seem to suggest, you could see the hints that he was a tad uncomfortable himself.

With a sigh, Stretch began to walk towards one of the doorways. “i’m gonna see if i can find sans and talk with him. why don’t you go get changed since you did end up rolling around in the yard a little bit earlier?” Your clothes didn’t look dirty to you, but an order was an order. With no hesitation, you began to walk off so you could go to your room and change into the other outfit that Papyrus had laid out for you when he’d gone to retrieve you in the morning. You could hear Stretch sigh again as you left, mumbling about how he was going to have to figure out how to track Sans down.

You were just around the corner and out of sight of any skeletons when suddenly, Hickory appeared before you. There was no change to even react to his presence before grabbed you and pulled you tightly to his chest. Without even giving you a chance to prepare, you felt yourself being pulled through a shortcut. Being unprepared for it had you limply in his arms with eyes open. When you were in the darkness in between destinations, you could only feel your soul stop for a moment as you say something in the distance. They were far enough away that it could have just been a trick of your eyes, but you were out on the other side before you could be sure. A shaky breath left you as you swayed slightly where you stood. Your whole being was disoriented from the near instant movement from one place to another without being prepared for it, but also because of what you thought you had seen during the teleportation. It had looked like… but it couldn’t be. Right? Your mind reeled as you stumbled slightly to try and regain your balance.

A quiet, impatient snarl helped your mind remember that there was more important things to be focused on at the moment. Another reminder came not long after as you were roughly grabbed again by the front of your dress and one of your arms. Learned instinct from your time with your old master had you quickly going limp enough the hold that you could be easily maneuvered with enough form to yourself that you wouldn’t just fall over if the one who’d grabbed you just pulled away entirely. “Who taught you to fight like that? Where did you come from? I bet you’re a spy or a bug, aren’t you? I knew there had to be something off with you to have my brother under you spell.” Hickory glared at you as he held you with a painfully tight grip. Your face had naturally fallen into the neutral expression at his rough handling and tone and he seemed displeased by this. He pushed you away from him roughly, and since you weren’t expecting it, you stumbled back and tripped over something on the floor.

That something turned out to be a rug, which had you look around slightly to notice you were in a bedroom that you could only assume to be his with the few discarded clothes that covered one or two of what looked to be condiment bottles of some kind. In fact, he had just shoved you over towards the bed with it’s blankets spread across it haphazardly. The blankets at the top seemed to be sliding off the bed in a way you recognized as happening when somebody just rolled out of bed and usually ended up face first on the floor before continuing to drag themselves out.

Your old master hadn’t let you around beds except for one reason. Perhaps Hickory wanted that of you too? Deciding it was better to just prepare for it instead of dragging it out, you got up and moved onto the bed. The blankets felt strange with how they were bunched up beneath you, but you ignored it to try and be a good pet. You put your hands up by your heads and lay with your legs parted slightly. You made sure to keep your head turned away towards the wall. The room was deathly silent. It made your soul flutter nervously as you let yourself become numb to your surroundings. It was taking a while for anything to happen, so you slowly brought one hand down to the hem of your skirt. Your hand weakly grasped the fabric before beginning to pull it up slowly. It’d be best if you moved it yourself.

A hand was suddenly tightly gripping at your wrist and you let it go limp, letting the fabric slip from your grip. You hadn’t heard Hickory come over, or felt the magic of teleportation, but you’d been numbing yourself to your environment so you supposed it only made sense. “what do you think you were you doing?” Hickory didn’t sound like he wanted a response, and he almost sounded like there was a hint of a horrified tone in his voice. You just laid there limply for a moment longer before beginning to sit up to see if maybe you’d been doing it wrong and had to start differently. Your old master was never constant about that sort of thing either, so it didn’t bother you much. Hickory had a baffled look on his face as you turned in his direction. Probably just confused at which method you were going to use now is all. Your eyes slid closed and you took a slow breath before leaning towards where his face had been. His breathing hitched as you drew near, and you wondered if he even know what to do for this one. You old master hadn’t prefered this way to start, but you had used it a couple of times.

Loud, insistent knocking came from the door, causing you to open your eyes in fluttering blinks just in time to see Hickory’s panicked face. “ARE YOU IN THERE, MUTT?” It sounded like Razz was on the other side of the door. That all you got to register before Hickory pushed you away from him with enough for to have you head crash into the wall on the opposite side of the bed with a loud ‘thunk’ sound. Your vision of an even more panicked Hickory blurred as the sound of muffled yelling accompanied the white noise overtaking your senses. Blinking was slow and did nothing to clear things up before the world before you ended up slipping away.

 

You laughed as you bounced along the walkway just behind your father. He was chuckling gently at the joke you’d just told him that you had wanted to try out on him before surprising your pun loving brother with it. He said something, but it reverberated strangely in your ears, making it sound like words that you just couldn’t piece together. It was strange. You shook your head just before a noise of panic left your father. He was pinwheeling over the edge of the walkway. Your instincts pushed you forward and you leap at him, managing to throw him back to safety as you then ended up falling over the edge to cling on weakly yourself. Looking down brought the sight of a mass of fiery hands stretching out as if calling for you to join them. Your grip slipped and not wanting to watch your demise come for you, your gaze turned up towards the walkway where you’d at least saved for father. A head peaked over the edge, and chills ran down your spine when you noticed that the head - while the startled cry from it matched your father’s voice - was nothing more than a white blur sitting atop the body of your father. Your mouth gaped for only a moment before your eyes squeezed shut at the force of impact with the fiery colours of the surface below. You screamed as they grabbed at whatever they could reach, rendering you imobile even as you raised one arm up - begging for help - as you were dragged under.

The world under the arms had you floating near weightlessly as if you underwater, but it didn’t feel like you were in water. Your limbs were imobile as your hair floated up around your head and your clothes rose loosely around you while you sunk slowly. Opening your eyes revealed that the white blur that had been in place of your father’s head disappearing from the surface in black ripples and you were nearly surrounded by the darkness except for the pale blue glow that came from beneath you and bled up into the darkness before being choked out. The silence was suffocating and you watched faintly as barely visible bubbles rose from your mouth and into the darkness above. Despite the silence, or maybe because of it, everything was peaceful. You could feel your eyes growing heavy and you had no will to stop them.

Just before you could let them close fully, a red blur sent white glowing rippled through the darkness above you as it breached what must be the surface. You watched through lidded eyes as it sped towards you. It hit your abdomen going full force and a stream off bubbles left you before you gasps for air only to take in the nothingness of the world around you. Instead of turning around and speeding back up to the surface, the blur just kept speeding down. The pale blue glow grew brighter and brighter and you let your heavily eyes finally fall closed.

Violent coughs shook your figure as you shot up into a sitting position on a stone floor. The red blur from before was still present, but it was now blocking the face of one of your friends as her voice became distorted in your ears. You could tell she was upset, but you just couldn’t make our her words for the life of you. Tears sprung up in your eyes as you curled into a ball, hands over your ears as tears sprung up in your eyes. Why couldn’t you see their faces? Why couldn’t you understand their words? A scream left you as you pushed yourself to your feet and took off running. This wasn’t right. You didn’t know what was wrong, but maybe you could fix it.

You tripped over something coming out of the ground and landed face first in something cold and white. Snow. It was nice to see the familiar substance after who knows how long, but you weren’t dressed for it. A familiar voice let out a worried shout and you sighed in relief as you pushed yourself up and spun around to hug your brother that had run over. That relief quickly turned into horror as you pushed yourself back as you realized he didn’t have any warmth to him and his voice had that same distortion of everyone else’s so far.

Just as you turned your wide eyed gaze up at your one brother, a snowball smacked the side of your head and you could hear the laugh of your older brother. Your other brother yelled at him in an upset manner as you knew was likely barating your older one for having thrown that snowball at you after you’d just gotten up from off of the ground. The familiar exchange of a mischievous tone followed by a loud shout had you shaking your head and turning around. Why was everything so messed up?

You tripped again when you weren’t looking and you went tumbling down a hill. It felt like such a large hill as you went down it until you landed in a spider web at the bottom despite being still in a snowy forest. It wasn’t right. You struggled to free yourself, yet the webbing stuck to you and wouldn’t let you go. In fact, the strings wrapped around you so that you were the one holding the web together.

Confused tears sprung up in your eyes before you noticed a lone flower popping out of the snow before you. Bright yellow petal bouncing with it as the plant bobbed in place. A face that looked drawn on in careful crayon on the white center of the flower smiled up at you in a friendly manner and you called for help and stretched an arm out towards you. The face of the flower then melted right off before two red splotches appeared where the eyes had been and a gaping black hole grinned up at you maliciously before the flower wilted, leaving you trapped in the web.

Suddenly the ground below the web began to crack and pull apart as parts of it crumbled into a black abyss. You could only stare in horror as everything in the world around you cracked in this manner as well, some objects turning to dust and floating away on a nonexistent breeze. With a loud snap, the web fell apart and you were falling down into the darkness. As you fell, you cried. Nothing made sense. What was going on? Why was this happening? You didn’t understand. Ground as dark as your surroundings eventually came up under your feet, but you just collapsed straight to your knees and sobbed into the darkness which gladly gobbled up the noise. White hands came out of the void and grabbed you before you felt like you were being drawn into a hug. You leaned into the embrace and sobbed onto the shoulder that blended into the pitch colour of your surroundings. The hands just held you to the being you couldn’t see as you felt yourself grow tired. It just rubbed soothing circles into your back and rocked you gently. As you felt yourself drifting off, you heard the only clear words since being on that walkway. “It is time to wake up. You are worrying them.” Your were too far out of it to place the voice, but it nagged at something in the back of your mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so things are going to be picking up in my life for a while, so I don't know if I'll be able to keep up with the weekly updates anymore. I'll try to keep up, but don't be too surprised if it doesn't come every week for the next while. I'll still try to keep updating on Wednesdays when I do get an update ready just to be a bit more consistent. So if there's not an update by Thursday, then I just couldn't update that week. The benefit to that is that any updates to do make that take a couple of weeks to come out then it should be hopefully on the longer side.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nightmares done diddly do you a frighten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just be aware that I updated the tags a little and while it doesn't get explicit it doesn't hint heavily towards that stuff. There's some face licking, but that's as far as it gets here even if it hints that it's gone farther. I don't plan to ever go into details about that sort of thing, but I do know that the MC will end up talking about this at some point with somebody and I'll try to keep it just implied, but it may end up being heavily implied towards some really bad things, so if any of you want to dip out now then that's alright. I don't plan on ever going into that explicitly, but if it really bothers you then that's alright. If you want to still read this story, or at least this chapter, and skip the part that dives heavier into that non-con area, once you hit where there's a larger space between two sections of the story you can hit ctrl and f together and search for 'opening your eyes' and that should bring you to the section after all of that is over. Or you could scroll down looking for the next larger break between paragraph in the chapter. I'll put a quick summary of that section in the end with the more important plot related bits mentioned in the notes at the end of the chapter if you want to read those instead.

You blinked blearily as upset whispering was exchanged back and forth between two voices that sounded vaguely familiar. Looking over in the direction of the voices you saw two somewhat familiar figures, though their outfits were weird. Were they dressed up for a costume party? You could get where the arguing came from if that was the case. “Pap…?” You got out with a gravelly voice before a cough roughly shook your body as your throat cried in protest at your use of your vocal cords. Your head felt fuzzy and a pain spread from the back of it that throbbed dully compared to the scratchy sort of pain that burned in your throat. Why did it hurt? Trying to remember took too much effort, so you gave up on it pretty quickly, but you could vaguely recall that you'd decoded that you hadn't wanted to talk anymore. Why was that?

The thoughts slid out of your grip as a familiarly shaped skull with the wrong facial features peered down at you with open concern. Why were his teeth sharp? Was It a costume thing? You'd have to ask about it when the fog in your head cleared up. It was making it really hard to think and focus. You blinked when you realized that you'd just been talked to. Being lost in your thoughts had made the words be completely lost on you, but the way you saw a the expression slowly sagging you knew you knew couldn't just stay silent as that would probably worry them worse. “Sa-?” You were cut of by the pain in your head changing to to a sharp stabbing for a moment. A whine left you as you could only manage to slowly raise a shaky hand to your head.

Arms wrapped around you and you sighed as you sunk into the embrace. Hugs were always nice, especially when you weren’t feeling well. It didn’t really help your head, though you were pretty comfortable like this. Sure, your head was actually fuzzing up even more from being in a sitting position now, but at least the pain had ebbed back into that dull throb once more. A wave of sadness washed over you and you weren’t even sure why right away. Tears just began flowing down your cheeks as you leaned into the one holding you and cried. Soothing tones were spoken to you, but you couldn’t understand the words and a momentary panic shot through you as you raised your arms to hug back. Unsure backrubs where give to you and you found yourself relaxing in the grip and just letting your tears come out. It was always better to get them out than keep them in. Being soothed through it helped you feel a little less strange about crying where others could see you too. As long as you were being held close as you cried, you were safe from all your problems. You were fine.

A wave of tiredness washed over you and you yawned into the shoulder of whoever was holding you - you hadn’t really been bothered enough to check at first and then the tears made things too hard to pick out - as your tears began to slow. You would be safe here though. You were wrapped up in comfortably boney arms that you knew would help you through whatever bad thing the back of your mind was nagging at that you just couldn’t reach. Surely it could be a problem anymore, and if it was, then you weren’t alone to deal with it and it should be fine until after you take a nap. Snuggling closer, you head chuckles from somewhere in the room. You were too out of it to guess where from, but you didn’t really care. In fact, a small smile found its way onto your face as you let yourself drift off.

 

Everything was dark. Not that soothing darkness of sleep, but a harsh, frigid one that ate away at you. A cloud misted up the air in front of you every time you let out a shaky, somewhat panicked breath. That meant it was winter right? It always got that cold in winter, though you barely had any way to fight the horrible temperatures. Looking around, you saw the thin mattress you were allowed to sleep on placed in its usual corner with the familiar thin, tattered blanket that might have once been pink. Your gaze slid across the mostly empty concrete space to where there was a nice bed set up within your reach. It looked like it could actually keep you decently warm, but the jangle of chains when you shifted reminded you of your place.

You couldn’t even bring yourself to stand to walk over to your mat, you you just crawled across the freezing ground that made your knees turn a brilliant shade of red from a mixture of cold and just the unforgiving nature of the rock like substance. Every movement felt stiff and robotic and the chains with cuffs around your wrists caused tingles to crawl up your arms as you whined quietly to yourself. The one that rested partially on your back because it was attached to your collar and wrapped around you awkwardly, but you just didn’t have the energy in you to fix it. It’d fix itself eventually, or your master would fix it for you. It didn’t matter in the end really anyway. There was no way to choke yourself, and even if there was, you probably still wouldn’t be able to bring yourself to do it. Even if home was gone, your family and friends were still out there somewhere. They had to be. So you had to try and wait this out until you could get to them. Hopefully you’d get there someday. Someday…

Curled up under the feeble blanket, hoping for a shred of warmth to come back to your body and numb toes. It would help if you had clothes on to help protect you from the chill, but your master didn’t like you to have clothes and said it was a waste to buy you more when they’d end up ruined in the end anyway. Sure, your master was the one that had ripped apart your old clothes, but that’d never be brought up. You master could never do any wrong after all, or so you’d been told to believe, even if you didn’t believe such and just pretended to since that meant less pain. Just going along with everything your master wanted of you was easier. If you were a good pet, then you’d even sometimes get treats, like being being able to stay in that warm bed overnight in the winter. Those were always nice nights because you could actually get a good rest instead of the shallow stuff you usually barely survived off of. Adrenaline is what kept you fine and not randomly passing out, and it was crazy strong sometimes though it was helpful for being aware of when the next punishment could be coming.

The door on the side of the room you couldn’t reach opened and flooded the room with a bright light which had you squinting, especially as the lightswitch right next to the opening was also turned on. Dread curled in you stomach, but you pretended to sleep. If anything was wanted of you, your master would let you know. As it was, you were probably going to be dragged from your mat due to your shivering under the guise of your master wanting to cuddle. If your master like cuddling so much, then why not do it with another monster? Leave you alone. You could deal with the cold. Of course you’d deal with it better if you had clothes or a proper blanket, but you’d manage.

A loud growl came from by the door and you let your eyes wander in that direction only to pause. A shadow stood there, eyes seeming to glow against the silhouette of your master’s form. You couldn’t lie to yourself that the shiver that ran up your spine was completely because of the cold. The silhouetted figure with the glowing eyes moved closer and you bit back a whine as you saw other silhouettes moving just outside the door. Had your master’s friends been brought again? It was bad enough when it was just your master, but when your master’s friends were there either as participants or spectators, things always became harder for you.

As a large mass slipped through the door and your master was drawing near you, bones shot up out of the ground. Ones with dull edges formed a vague protective dome around you as others shot up in a fence with sharp points facing out towards your master and friends. Warmth that rivaled the chill of the world around you sprang from your soul as you reached out towards the bones weakly. The chain attached to the cuff around your wrist rattled and you blinked as you looked at them. You’d completely forgotten they were there. Probably just you being so used to them that you didn’t feel them anymore.

Alarm shot through you as the chain pulled tight much shorter than it should be while another growl left your master. You could vaguely make out the form of your master pacing around the sharp bones, so it could be that your master had shortened them, could it? The dread returned to knot up your stomach and you tried to reach out to the bones with your other arm. It too fell short of how far you should have been able to reach. This wasn’t right. Why couldn’t you move your arms very far? Panic began to set in and you could feel your soul fluttering in rapidly. The chains growing shorter and pulling your arms up above your head on the mat when that shouldn’t have been where they shortened too even if they were shortening.

You watched in horror as the bones began to crumble to dust before you squeezed your eyes closed and huffed and coughed, trying to keep the dust just out of your nose, mouth, and eyes. Malicious laughter came from your master, who you could hear growing closer. Your soul’s panicked fluttering because to grow borderline painful as your breathing began to come in uneven shudders as you tried not to cry. You were already showing more emotion than you should be in order to get away with this with as little interaction with your master as possible. You had to reign it back in to try and help avoid spurring your master on any more.

Any hope for keeping your composure left you as your master just sat on your dust covered stomach and licked a stripe up one of your cheeks. You peaked open an eye just wide enough to watch as your master simply took the dust and ate it. Your stomach clenched while you felt sick. Tears finally began to prickle at the corners of your eyes, but you couldn’t help it. Taunting laughter filled your ears as you master did the same with the other cheek. The collar around your neck began to feel like hands that were pushing down on your throat, trying to suffocate you and just finish you off. Maybe if they had done this earlier, you would have fought the grip, but in the hopeless abyss your soul was sinking into, you welcomed the darkness and escape the lack of air provided. A silent apology to the ones you love rang out in your head as you let the darkness take you.

 

Opening your eyes, the first thing you saw was something reaching out towards you. You couldn’t help it; you screamed. The loud noise left you as you struggled to move yourself away from the hand. There wasn’t far for you to go before you were flush against a wall, chest heaving as you stared at the blurry hand that hovered in the air where it had been when you screamed. Your gaze remained fixated on it as you sat there. While you couldn’t do anything about it if it decided to follow you, you didn’t want it touching you without warning.

The hand retreated to a blurry body and the panic refused to let go of your soul. Why were they blurry? Why was the fact that they were blurry making your soul twist in such strange ways? You blinked and watched as the blurriness wavered a little before coming back. You scrunched up your face a little and one hand came up to rub at your eyes quickly. Your eyes were wet. Had you been crying?

When you were done wiping your eyes, you looked back up to see the familiar form of Razz staring at you with a worried scowl as his arms were crossed over his chest. Had he been the one to reach for you? Well now you felt a little bad. He’d been plenty kind to you since arriving at the house and you’d just screamed at him because you couldn’t control yourself after a simple nightmare. You’d been so good at it before when you’d lived with your old master, though you supposed you could do a lot of things when you were with your old master, even if they weren’t necessarily good. A shudder ran up your spine and you apologetically glanced at Razz in hopes he’d start talking and help provide you with a distraction.

He looked like he was about to do just that when the door swung open with vigor and barely managed to not slam into the wall. At least, it didn’t make any noise like it did yet it looked like it still bounced back. There was probably something either against the wall or on the back of the door to keep it from actually slamming, and with the excitable skeletons in this household it was probably a good idea that whatever it was was there.

Speaking of excitable skeletons, Papyrus stood in the doorway. “HUMAN! WAS THAT YOU?!” His expression was one of worried panic that quickly shifted into something softer that he added a big grin to after he looked around the room. “OH HELLO RAZZ! DID YOU FIGHT OFF WHATEVER MADE THE HUMAN SCREAM?”

Razz didn’t seem too impressed with the appearance of the taller. “YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW THAT IT WAS THE HUMAN THAT SCREAMED.” He leveled a glare with no real threat behind it at Papyrus.

“NO, BUT I HAVE A FEELING!” Papyrus seemed so sure of himself as he said that. His grin so wide and genuine that you could feel yourself relaxing against the wall some more. You hadn’t even realized how stiff you’d still been despite calming down once recognizing Razz. A part of you felt bad for not being able to relax around Razz despite all he’d done for you so far, but you supposed it was just hard to warm up to somebody who vaguely reminded you of your old master. Not like they looked they same, there was just the same vague feeling of violence that hung around the both of them. It hung around Hickory, Edge, and Red too now that you thought about it. Perhaps they all had some LOVE? That was a strikingly sobering thought that squeezed your soul uncomfortably. You’d never met anyone with any LV before your old master if that was the case. Likely your old master’s friends had some LOVE too then. A sick feeling formed in the pit of your stomach at that thought, especially when coupled with the nightmare you’d just had.

The sound of a light knock at the door disturbed both your thoughts and the conversation that had continued without you listening. Your eyes darted over to see Sans standing there and you quickly averted your eyes when you noticed he was looking back and forth between the other two and seemed to be purposefully moving his gaze so that he wouldn’t ghost over your figure on the bed. Well that was just making the bad feeling that had fallen over you about the LV train of thought and making it worse. You pulled your knees up to your chest in your sitting position and trained your gazy on the bed and the blankets you’d messed up when moving to the wall in a blind panic. It seems like you’d been tucked in while you were unconscious. Actually, these blankets looked a lot like the ones that had been messily falling off of Hickory’s bed rather than the ones that were probably still untouched on your bed.

“so... uh… doc says she’s got abnormally high magic in her system for a human, but otherwise she should be fine with some rest. i’ve also got a list of things to watch out for just in case, but we can go over that later. either of you know why her magic might be so high? doc says it might be the diet of food that’s got as much magic in it as we need in order to properly eat without things falling through us, but she hasn’t been with us long enough for her to be giving off the levels that the doc told me they were.” Your breath caught in your throat as you let your eyes dart up to look at Sans as you listened to him talk. Your gaze was quickly diverted when you saw that his eye lights were dimmer than they should have been as he looked between the other two skeletons. At least your diverted gaze let you know that this was definitely Hickory’s room. Beyond the bed, nothing had changed from when Hickory had teleported you in here.

“MY BROTHER TELEPORTED HER IN HERE BEFORE SHE ENDED UP UNCONSCIOUS.” The air around you felt a little less suffocating when Razz spoke up. “LINGERING EFFECTS FROM THAT MIGHT BE A PART OF THAT.”

Papyrus smiled brightly as he gave his response. “I ALSO HEALED HER EARLIER AFTER STRETCH CARRIED HER INSIDE!”

A confused scowl fell across Razz’s face that you could out of the corner of your sight. “why would you heal her, pap? there’s never been any record of healing magic being used on a human. who knows if it’s even safe?” There was a hint of panic in Sans’s voice as he talked.

“WELL THE HUMAN SAID THAT IT WAS OKAY.” Silence followed Papyrus’s statement and you could only assume that the three were exchanging looks. “NO, SHE DID NOT ACTUALLY SPEAK. QUIT LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!” Papyrus’s tone grew a little flustered. “SHE MADE SOME MOTIONS THAT I CONNECTED TO HER SHOWING IT WAS OKAY TO HEAL HER, AND WHEN I ASKED HER IF IT WAS OKAY THAT I DID SO BEFORE I ACTUALLY DID THE HEALING, SHE NODDED HER ASSENT. SHE SEEMED QUITE SURE THAT IT WAS FINE, SO I THINK SHE’S HAD HEALING MAGIC USED ON HER BEFORE. JUST BECAUSE THERE’S NO RECORD OF IT, DOESN’T MEAN THAT HEALING MAGIC HASN’T BEEN USED ON HUMANS BEFORE.” Papyrus was a lot more perceptive than you’d given him credit for, but you supposed that it made sense that he was so attentive.

“what?” Sans’s voice was hollow and you kept your gaze firmly on the rise and fall of the wrinkles in the blanket just in front of you rather than looking up at him. You could already picture the empty sockets that made it seem like he was staring into your soul and you’d rather not have to deal with that right now. Your fingers fidgeted a little with the blanket that only really covered your feet at this point for something to do with your hands so you didn’t do something stupid with these nerves that were building up.

Papyrus gave a huff. “BROTHER!! WE ARE GOING TO GO TALK ABOUT THIS DOWNSTAIRS!” The audible footsteps of Papyrus marched over to where Sans was before sputtering protests came from the smaller brother as he was no doubt picked up and carried away despite the fact that it sounded like he was struggling against this fact.

It was only after the door made an audible click when it closed that you felt the magic of teleportation. A quick flick of your gaze upward was enough for you to make out enough details to tell that this was Hickory. He looked over at you and you caught what almost seemed like a guilty expression before your gaze returned to the blankets before you once more. He hadn’t been too happy with you before he’d pushed you into the wall. Your head gave a throb as if emphasising this point. The corner of your mouth twitched and you took an unsteady breath to try and bring it under control and keep any bad thoughts at bay. That didn’t really stop the faint burning in your chest that felt like your soul was being gnawed at by all that negativity that wanted in.

“hey… uh… could you look at me for a moment?” An order was an order. Being the good pet you were, you listened and obeyed. Hickory flinched back faintly as your blanks gaze fell on him and you could see small droplets of magic form across his skull as sweat. He turned to look over at Razz, who just stared back at him with an expected face. Hickory’s shoulders slumped and he sighed while turning back to you. “look uh… i’m sorry about before. i’ve just come to really need to watch my back because of some… things… i didn’t mean to hurt you.” His gaze was settled just above your shoulder and you got the feeling it was more from him being awkward about apologizing rather than him not wanting to look at you. You soul fluttered happily at this and maybe it was just the fact that you could possibly have lingering effects from your head bashing your head against the wall mixed with your sudden emotions, or maybe it was the fact that you were letting yourself grow somewhat comfortable here already despite your fear of getting hurt again mixed with those happy feelings, but you found yourself making your first choice to interact with one of the monsters in this household without them telling or asking you to. While your movement that had Papyrus heal you could also be considered the first, that was more a subtle gesture while this was full on you making a big obvious movement for what you wanted. You knees moved down and you reached your arms out towards Hickory, hands making grabby motions at him.

Both skeletons seemed surprised at your movements and Hickory had frozen up when you’d extended your arms. Had he expected you to reach out and hit him? That wasn’t the case at all. Razz seemed to break out of the stupor first. A big grin crossed his face as he turned to look at his brother expectantly. “WELL? YOU’RE NOT GOING TO KEEP HER WAITING, ARE YOU?” There was a hint of a teasing lilt to his tone and it caused the corners of your mouth to twitch upwards at typical sibling behaviour. The small twitch turned into a full blown smile as Hickory’s face lit up in a blush as he sputtered in what seemed to be a mix of surprise and embarrassment. You made another grabbing motion towards him and he flushed a little more as Razz snickered quietly. It was nice to see the two like this, with no guards up and acting like normal siblings.

With a glowing face, Hickory moved over to you and shifted awkwardly at the edge of the bed as if he wasn’t quite sure how to continue from that. Apparently you’d have to initiate this. Your soul twisted nervously and a matching twist could be felt in your stomach at the thought. Asking for a hug was one thing, but initiating it was another even if he seemed okay with it. Razz let out a sigh as he watched the two of you before Hickory was suddenly pushed onto the bed, causing both of you to make your own noises of surprise. You could feel Razz’s magic coming off to Hickory, so you could only assume that he’d turned his brother’s soul blue in order to push him. Razz then gave you an encouraging smile. You found yourself returning it with a much more timid smile before you turned to look at Hickory who was pushing himself up onto his elbows.

Taking a deep breath, you went for it. You dived forward with a bit too much force and wrapped your arms around Hickory’s torso. You buried your face into the fluff of his hood and squeezed gently as you were worried about Hickory’s response, but at the same time you just really needed this. A hug from somebody who seemed actually sorry for hurting you and like they wanted to help you in some way. Hickory let out a surprised noise and fell back to the bed from not being prepared for your extra weight, but he was soon chuckling beneath you. “calm down. i’m not going anywhere, but i need you to get off if you want a proper hug.” You peeled yourself away reluctantly and looked away from the two skeletons in the room as you felt your cheeks warm faintly. How long had it last been since you’d blushed for any reason beyond temperature? You didn’t get to dwell on this thought as Hickory’s arms wrapped around you and pull you down onto his chest as he laid on the bed. A part of you screamed and cried out in fear at the fact that you were being cuddled on a bed as bad memories tried to crawl their way into your mind, but movement of Razz crawling onto the bed to cuddle you from behind pushed them away. You allowed yourself to relax while between the two skeletons and a gentle smile sat on your face as you let out a happy sigh. This was good. This was nice. You were safe. They’d keep you safe. Sure, Hickory may have scared you and then knocked you out earlier, but he was just looking out for his brother. Plus, he hadn’t meant to knock you out. You probably would have done something similar to him if you thought somebody had messed with one of your brothers too if you were being honest. He was protective and you could respect that.

“STOP GIVING ME THAT LOOK! JUST BECAUSE I’M WILLING TO CUDDLE NOW, DOESN’T MEAN I CONDONE LAZY BEHAVIOUR!” Razz huffed in response to some expression that Hickory must be tossing him over your shoulder. At this point you couldn’t help it. It was so much like being back home with your family - while still weird and off, but that didn’t matter - that you couldn’t stop the giggles that left you. Genuine giggles as you moved to wrap your arms around Hickory as best you could to return at least his hug. You could give Razz a hug in thanks for his cuddles as well after the cuddling was over. With your soul bouncing lightly with your giggles, and both skeletons soon following with their own happy noises, you found yourself feeling safer and more at peace than you had in a long time. Curled up in a barrier of bones that would keep you safe from harm long after they were no longer cuddling you like this because you had a feeling they would keep watching your back and would take good care of you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, for any of you who skipped the nightmare detailed in the chapter, I've got your summary right here for you.  
> Basically, the MC wakes up in a cold dark room with metal shackles around her wrists and a collar attached to her neck. There's a nice bed in the room that could keep her warm once it warms up from her body heat, but instead she goes and lays down on a thin mat under a ratty old blanket that doesn't really help her situation. She thinks about how she hopes she'll be able to get out of there and back to her friends and family someday along with some vague talk about getting treats for being good as well as the mention that she's without any clothes to keep her warmer with the blanket, when the door to the room opens and the light turns on as her old master - who she only refers to as her master here as she's in the mindset in this nightmare that she's still with her old master - is a silhouette in the doorway with glowing eyes. She mentions in her thoughts that her old master would sometimes use cuddling as an excuse to do things and why that couldn't just be done with another monster instead even though she knows the true reasoning behind why her old master would say such things. Her master comes closer and bones appear around her in both a protective cage and a spiky deterrent to keep her old master, and her old master's friends away from her as they're also heard outside of the room and can be vaguely see outside of it through the door. The chains around her wrists start pulling tight in a way that they shouldn't to pull her hands up by her head before the bones around her turn to dust and cover her. Her old master sits on her chest and licks dust off her face before eating it which she is revolted by. She starts to cry and her old master laughs before the collar around her neck begins to choke her and she lets herself go to the darkness because of how hopeless she feels in that situation. As she fades out from that she silently apologizes to her loved ones for giving up basically.
> 
> Anyway, with that done and out of the way, this chapter is shorter than I would have liked seeing as I didn't end up last week. I got hit with a really bad headache that was light sensitive for a few days so I ended up avoiding computers altogether on those days and didn't get anything down. Plus, this spot just felt like a good place to leave the chapter for this week. Since it felt like such a good breaking point there, I've started on the next update, so hopefully I'll get it out next week, but no promises just in case. In other news, Happy Valentine's Day, or Single's Awareness Day, or Forever Alone Day depending on what you'd like to call it. Hope everyone had fun doing whatever you ended up doing if anything at all, and if you're reading this after Valentine's Day, then I hope you just have/had a good day then.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Panic attack to popcorn.

The next day, the skeletons had work. They’d said their goodbyes - and apologies for having to leave you while you were still adjusting from Papyrus and Blue - and they basically told you that you had free reign of the house until you got done. Papyrus and Blue had also heavily hinted that they’d like you to be at the door to greet them when they got back as they had repeated told you the time that they should be getting back. It seemed that Razz and Hickory hadn’t told anyone about your cuddle session from yesterday, and you were kind of glad for that. That would have just added to the craziness that ended up happening the previous evening because you were being fretted over due to having been knocked out for a while. Apparently you had missed supper, but Papyrus made sure there was some leftovers for you.

Now there was just the problem that you faced for today; Edge. While the others had all taken the weekend off - or were forced to for Papyrus and Edge apparently - due to the taller skeletons’ birthdays, Edge had also been forced to take today off too since apparently he was really avoidant of takings vacations for whatever reason, leaving the two of you alone in the house today. It hadn’t started off as a bad day, per se. You’d kept to yourself in your room and you unpacked all of the bags of items that had been bought for you, finding spots for everything while putting it with a careful order to it all. You had to share your room with your brother who was a bit of a neatfreak growing up. Sure you had some sloppy habits too, but that was likely from all the time you spent in your older brother’s room after you’d figured out how to make your own bean bags with the resources you had available to you.

It had all been fine and you’d been going over things for the third time already when there was suddenly a loud rumbling noise that shook the room. It’d been raining all morning and you’d found it a great background noise, but this was new. You soul clenched at the sound before racing with fear and panic as images of rock formations breaking apart filled your mind. A strange light from outside had you flinching before you bolted out of your room and upstairs where you knew Edge was supposed to be. You had no idea what was going on and it terrified you as awful scenarios danced through your mind. You vaguely remembered a monster that had magic attacks that made noises like this and the idea of there possibly being a monster who wielded similar magic that had come to attack the house. If there were monsters with LOVE hanging around this world casually and freely, then you couldn’t rule that thought out like you so badly wanted to.

Now you were here, alone and panicking in the living room after dashing around the whole house and not finding any signs of Edge. You’d even peeked into the bedrooms of everyone, so unless he was hiding in a closet, he was just missing. Tears blurred the edges of your vision as you fought to keep them away while your hands fidgeted and your throat burned from your rapid breathing. This panic wasn’t good and would keep you from making good decisions, but you couldn’t calm yourself even when attempting deep breathes. Darkness pushed at the edges of your vision and you couldn’t tell if that was from your panicked breathing or from some form of magic. While it didn't feel like there was any actively used magic in effect around you at the moment, though your panic could be messing with you ability to detect such, there was also plenty of residual magic in the living room from the skeletons using magic on there along with the magic they naturally gave off. Sort of like how more physical creatures gave off body heat, only the feeling of the magic could take on many forms and magic tended to linger for longer periods of time depending on the monster and the type of magic.

With another deep breath you realized that the darkness was gone and your breathing was somewhat more regular - still on the fast side, but better than it had been. Looks like getting lost in your thoughts about magic related stuff was a good thing in this case. As long as none of your masters were around, it was probably okay.

The noise of the front door startled you and you could feel your heart and soul beginning to race once more from panic. Your breathing became near silent as you crept towards the front hallway scared of just who might be there. A small part of your mind offered up the idea of your old master having decided to take you back and so tracked you down here to grab you while paying another monster to make that startling flashing and awful noise to distract Edge while you were taken. While you knew it was highly unlikely, that didn’t stop it from worsening your anxiety over all of this. With shaking hands you supported yourself against the wall and cautiously peered through the doorway into the hallway to see who had entered. Angry grumbles with noisy movement of the front closet being used reached your ears and had you pausing for a moment before realizing that an intruder would have little use for the front closet.

Fully peeking around the wall had a rush of relief flooding from your soul. Edge was grumbling angrily to himself as he took off his boots and a large jacket to put them in the front hall closet. In this relief, you weren’t really thinking as you rushed up to him and latched onto him in a hug. The tall skeleton didn’t even have time to react properly before you were on him like a dog on a special attack. There was no getting rid of you either as your grip was stronger now with your fear and relief than it usually was. You may not like Edge too much - and he didn’t seem to really like you either - but he was here and he was  _ safe _ and  _ alive _ . At least you weren’t alone during whatever this was. Edge growled as he tried to push you off of him, clearly in a worse mood than usual. “GET OFF.” That was the most commanding and flat tone you’d head since arriving in this place. Your soul stuttered for a moment before you started to comply with the order.

A bright flash from outside had you freeze and moments later the bad noise came and you were back to clinging to Edge. This didn’t seem to please the tall monster, but there seemed to be a hint of amusement in his sockets that you had caught while having your eyes dart around for signs of where the danger could be. Every part of you was tense as you awaited the need to run in order to save you and Edge. He wouldn’t die with you here, even if you didn’t get along. You could at least protect him since the others were all out of your reach. Hopefully you wouldn’t fail at this too. Given that he had LV, he’d probably be more useful in protecting things than you, but maybe you could find a solution that would give a peaceful option for resolve.

Edge sighed. “NOW THAT YOU’VE HAD YOUR FUN, YOU WOULD GET OFF ALREADY?” It didn’t sound as angry as normal, and the push he gave you to accompany his words was definitely him holding back his strength. Whether the push was gentler because he didn’t want the others upset with him or some other reason, you didn’t know. You just squeezed the taller skeleton with a slightly stronger grip as another rumble reverberated through the space. That one sounded close, that probably wasn’t anything good then. You gently shook your face into Edge’s side as a reply to his question. You didn’t think you’d do too well on your own at the moment. You didn’t want to leave him alone right now either. What if something happened to seperate you? You couldn’t let that happen. Not again. Never again. You didn’t want to be alone again. Especially not if this sound meant your impending doom. Not that you had been right about what you’d thought to be impending doom before. Didn’t make the panic and fear loosen their grip on your soul though.

Edge grumbled about not having the time for this before he just began to walk into the house, barely seeming weighed down by you clinging to him. You blinked, stunned that he made it seem like such an effortless weight. Sure, you didn’t weigh as much as you used to, but surely you should sense  _ some _ sort of effort from him from the added weight. Yet there was nothing. Truly, the strength of this skeleton baffled you.

The first place you were dragged to was Edge’s room. He stopped outside of it and looked down at you with an expression that actually wasn’t some sort of scowl or glare. “I WOULD PREFER IF YOU GOT OFF OF ME HERE. I HAVE NO NEED FOR YOU ENTERING MY ROOM AND MESSING EVERYTHING UP.” The tall skeleton’s face slipped into a more familiar scowl when you just stared back up at him blankly. “I REFUSE TO HAVE A REPEAT OF WHATEVER HAPPENED BETWEEN YOU AND HICKORY.” You stiffened for a moment at the mention of what happened yesterday. Definitely didn’t want a repeat of that. So reluctantly, you let go and took a step away from Edge, casting your gaze towards the ground as one hand reached up nervously only to touch your collar bone and remind you that everything important to you had been taken, one thing after another you couldn’t help but blame yourself for even if a part of you knew you shouldn’t.

Something red filled your vision before fabric rest warmly around your neck and over your hand. Your gaze raised up to look at Edge only to see he’d given you his scarf. At your bewildered expression he waved you off as he turned towards his room, keeping his gaze off of you. “DON’T THINK THIS MEANS ANYTHING. I SIMPLY DO NOT WANT YOU TRYING TO ENTER MY ROOM UNLESS GIVEN PERMISSION, THOUGH IT’S HIGHLY UNLIKELY YOU EVER WILL. THIS IS A SIGN THAT I WILL RETURN. BESIDES, IT’LL ONLY GET IN THE WAY OF ME CHANGING INTO SOMETHING MORE COMFORTABLE GIVEN THE CIRCUMSTANCES.” He was in his room and closing the door before you could even begin to question his motives. A small part of you felt like he was almost showing some tsundere qualities.

A tiny grin curled up on your face as you moved your hand from under the scarf, to sit on top of the red fabric and hold onto that. It was comforting, and the fabric was surprisingly soft and in good condition despite the somewhat rough look it gave off from a distance. Suppose it shouldn’t be surprising given what little you’d picked up of Edge’s personality since coming to this house. He was loud and proud, but he never skipped the details of something. Surely comfort was one of those details alongside aesthetic. With this scarf as a comfort item in hand, you decided you should do something with your feet while you wait. Edge never said you couldn’t leave, just that you couldn’t enter his room. So rather than do either, you began to pace. Up and down the basement hallway, ignoring the doors to either side of you as you tried to focus on your steps in hopes that it would keep your mind clear.

A loud cracking noise followed by a long, low rumble quickly pushed any of those plans out of mind as you took a shaky breath. The ground was shaking, making fear grip your soul worse. Stumbling, you made your way to Edge’s door, both hands now up and holdings tight onto the scarf as if it were your last lifeline. This was it, wasn’t it? Your view was already going hazy from dust, or was that tears? You couldn’t tell. Your thoughts were too fast for you to pull much coherency from any of it. There was something solid against your side. The wall? The floor? The building collapsing in on you? You couldn’t tell, but the shaking wasn’t stopping. You were aware of your hands moving, but you weren’t even entirely sure what you were doing. Signing maybe? It wasn’t like there was anyone around to see, and it seemed like nobody would ever get to see after this. A large gasping breath shook your form and it burned. Was it dust in the air? It felt so thick. Coughs joined the symphony of white noise taking over your ears as you were pushed by a need to get it out. Get all of the dust out. It was bad to breathe it in, and not just because of your human biology needing your pulmonary system to be clear of debris. It hurt. It hurt and you wanted it to stop. Beyond the red of the scarf that was immediately by your face, was that loose fabric from it pooling away from your chest, or blood? If it was blood, then it would explain the burning that refused to leave your chest which continued to heave with gasps for air you didn’t seem to be able to get in. Everything was still shaking. Why wouldn’t it stop shaking? Why couldn’t the ground just settle and let you recover in the rubble the home around you must be in as you probably have the life seep out of you while you failed again, and now you were going to die alone in the hallway with your last words being ones forced out of you by your old master instead of anything nice to anyone you loved. Unless your signing counted as your last words, whatever gibberish you were even making with your hands.

A loud noise made the shaking worse. It wasn’t the noise from before, the one that had started it all, or any of the others you’d been hearing like it, yet it still was loud enough to make everything shake worse. It repeated, multiple times, and it almost sounded likes muffled words to the far reaches of your mind, but the panic that was all consuming ate that too. Nobody should be yelling as nearby as they would have to be for their voice to be that loud anyway. Not if everything was coming down. The new loud noise was drowned out by more of that horrid rumbling and you curled into a protective ball on the floor where you’d ended up at some point, the details on how already fuzzy beyond that you were there now. The tears that ran down your face freely felt thick and yet the blur that obscured your vision didn’t leave, even if it wavered.

With a thick raspy noise coming from nearby, your mind kicked into overdrive if what it was doing wasn’t already considered that. The noise had sounded like a sigh almost, but who in the world could that belong to? Edge. Edge was still in the building. You had to get him out. Even if you died trying, then you at least did something right. If not… then maybe this dust you were choking on was his. The thought shook your soul and twisted it uncomfortably as you tried to push yourself onto your hands and knees despite the fact that everything seemed content to just shake forever. It didn’t work and you fell over with a weak noise. You sounded pathetic. You felt pathetic. That didn’t matter though. Getting to Edge was what was important. Which was was his room? You’d have to crawl there if you couldn’t get up and that could take some work. Maybe you should try your hands and knees once more and hope for the best.

Just as you were pushing back up again, hands gripped your shoulders, causing your breathing your breathing to hitch in surprise despite the fact that you were so desperate for air at the moment. Another bout of shuddering coughs was the response your desperate lungs gave to that action. The stranger pushed you so you were sitting against a wall and you struggled against them. You had to go. You had to get Edge. They should go get him instead of you. You’d be fine. You had to be fine because you needed to be fine in order to do what you need to. What you want doesn’t matter anymore, you just need to do what you need to. Emotions got in the way and got you in more trouble than you needed. Besides, Edge was what was most important here anyway. Your family and friends probably already thought you were dead if they weren’t out there looking for you, but Edge still had Red and everyone else in this household. Probably others outside of this house who knew him too. He wasn’t alone and he actually did important things. That’s why he deserved to be rescued.

A low growl had you stiffen as your eyes snapped open - you didn’t remember closing them like that. Your gaze darted around as you tried to make yourself as small as possible. You were good! You were good! You didn’t do anything wrong! That didn’t matter. There was always something wrong with you it seemed. Punishment made sure good humans stayed good. Even if you were failing at helping anybody or doing anything useful. Maybe this was your punishment for not getting off of Edge when he had first told you to earlier. Another sigh reached your ears and a whimper was all that could leave you in response, you wanted to help, but you didn’t know what to do. Useless as ever. Couldn’t save you home, can’t save a monster who’s probably dying and alone in his final moments that he shouldn’t even be having. It was probably your fault that all of this happened anyway. There had to be some action you took to have caused this. Butterfly effect. Your actions had unseen repercussions. Maybe something you did caused all of this. And everyone would just act like you were a victim when it was all your fault and Edge was  _ dead _ and it’s all your fault that the building  _ crushed _ him. This cave in was your fault. It had to be. Just like everything else.

“Seriously-” Your eyes darted around to find the source of the broken voice before focusing on the dark figure in front of you. “-of it.” Confusion joined the panic and fear and you stared at the figure who was standing as if the shaking didn’t really exist. As if realizing they had your attention, the figure pulled away from you - had they been that close the whole time? - and crossed red forearms over their chest. Red? From your blood maybe? That would mean you really were dying. That would probably explain how blank your mind was becoming. “-others throw a fit if I broke you.” If… what? You weren’t broken. Well… not by anyone who should be in the house. Why would anyone care anyway? “Come on.” You were pulled out of your thoughts by the blurry figure moving closer to you. You pressed you back into the wall behind you more. “Let’s wipe those tears away, we have more important things to be doing.” The red appendages reached for your face and you tilted it off to the side as you squeezed your eyes closed. They were hands covered in a thick fabric of some kind as they wiped your face and gently brushed over your eyelids. Confusion spread through you as the shaking died down. At least the earthquake was passing, so the worry about more rubble falling was lessened.

You took a shuddering breath before slowly opening your eyes after the fingers were off of your eyes. It took a few more blinks, and another swipe to get rid of the tears that you didn’t remember crying to cause, before your vision was mostly cleared up. A jolt of panic shook through you as you saw that it was Edge who was holding your face. Your eyes darted over him for injuries only to see that he was fine, and then to the hallway around you to see that there was no rubble at all. The panic and fear were quickly dying out as confusion ate away at them. Edge took advantage of this confusion to grab you and pick you up. A startled noise sprung from you before you could even process what was going on.

While you stayed stiff in his hold as he shifted you in the hold he had on you as if he were carrying a child. His chest moved in a way that had all thought pause for a moment. This let you caught the faint noise coming from Edge. Was he… laughing? It was faint, but you could hear a small ‘nyah ha’ leave him. The sound was nice, and fit him well. In fact, you felt yourself relaxing at the gentle noise you hadn’t expected from him. Not completely limp like a dead weight, but relaxed into his hold as if you were held like this by him normally.

You even found yourself nuzzling your face into his neck, which elicited a surprised noise from the normally grouchy seeming skeleton. The urge to smile rose within you and you didn’t fight it as a gentle curl pulled at your lips since your face was hidden in his shoulder and the scarf you were wearing anyway. That thought made you pause. He hadn’t bothered to take his scarf back yet. For all his insistence that it was just because it would have gotten in the way while he was changing anyway, he sure didn’t seem to mind that you were still holding onto it. Quite literally actually, since your left hand still clung to the scarf as your right was thrown up over the opposite shoulder your head rested on. Maybe there was something softer under that angry shell of a skeleton that you’d only seen so far. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but the way he was treating you now was nice.

A loud boom sounded through the house again and panic clawed at your soul once more. You grasp on Edge tightened as you pushed your face into his shoulder even more with a small whine sounding from the back of your throat - an involuntary response of just wanting to latch onto the nearest safe thing and not let go. Despite whatever LOVE that Edge had, he was still safer than whatever was making that noise. It was loud and reminded you of too many close calls from the past. Well, you called them close calls as there was no other way to word it that others would easily understand.

Edge carried you up to the kitchen and put you down on the counter. He made no move to take his scarf back and so you brought your right hand back to grab at it again. You sat where he left you and watched as he moved to a cupboard you hadn’t seen any of the skeletons go into yet. He pulled out a jar filled with some kind of seed and placed it down next to you before wandering over to another cabinet and pulling out some sort of machine you also didn’t recognize and placed it on clear counter space near you before going to grab a large bowl - at least you could recognize something he was using.

Catching your staring, Edge sighed as he plugged the machine in and grabbed the seeds to scoop some into it as he put the bowl near the opening. “I know this isn’t as healthy as using fire magic, but it’s a pain in the ass to get any for personal use when it isn’t a type of magic you can use yourself. So we’ll just have to make due with the air popped popcorn. As long as we don’t drench it in butter, it’ll still be healthier than the microwaved popcorn.” You perked up at the familiar name of the food as you turned your attention to the machine. While you’d heard of the snack, you’d never actually been able to try it before. Faint chuckling had you glance over at Edge only to notice him fighting a smile and trying to stifle the noise. Maybe he actually enjoyed your reaction? The smile that had fallen from your face when Edge put you down threatened to come back. Not knowing if you could stop it, you simply pulled the scarf up over your lower face.

Strangled coughing followed a squawking noise from Edge as he say you do this action. He scowled, though it seemed almost playful now as he batted at you to try and get you to pull it down while telling you to not get your ‘human germs’ on it. A teasing smirk popped on your face behind the scarf as the comparison to cooties popped into your head. A completely childish notion, but it felt right coming from him. Edge reached out and pat your head without hesitation and you blinked at him. He simply muttered to himself something along the lines of ‘pets liking to be pet’ which had your soul pause for a moment. Of course he still thought of you as a pet, even though the others seemed to be treating you more like the person you were. That’s what some humans were after all, and pets aren’t people so his treatment of you as if you were an animal made sense. Well, not the name calling and the stick in the mud attitude, but it wasn’t as prevalent now that the two of you were alone, so perhaps it was a bit of a facade he kept up around the others that he didn’t feel the need to keep up around you. Though his reasoning for that could very well be because he didn’t think you were smart enough to know the difference. While that was a little insulting, you supposed you hadn’t shown that you had higher thought just like him and the others.

Popping startled you, causing you to let go of the scarf and tightly wrap your arms around your abdomen as you curled into a ball. Your eyes were squeezed shut as you awaited pain that never came, instead phantom pains sprung up across your back. The sound of another rumble didn’t help the situation any either. Your shoulders trembled and you could feel tears burning at your eyes despite how much you didn’t want to cry. You didn’t want to show any weakness around Edge, but you just couldn’t help it. Everything about today was just wrong and bad and you didn’t know why.

The popping continued, the rumbling occasionally joining the chorus, until it all went silent, and the whir of the machine Edge had turned on was gone shortly after. He said nothing to you, nor looked your way, as he went about his work, and you were fine with that. You weren’t in a position where you could deal with what he threw your way if it was anything unpleasant. Your walls had fallen with your fear and that scared you even more.

However, when Edge did turn to you once more, he simply scooped you up in one arm and picked up the bowl he had set out earlier full of something white and took you to the living room. He set the bowl down on an end table before seating himself on one of the recliners while positioning you in his lap. You were curled up awkwardly there as you fought with yourself not to stiffen and wait for him to try anything. He hadn’t made any moves at you or against you since you arrived, despite his many loud complaints and how adamant he could be about some subjects involving you, though you supposed that all of his strong opinions had been him treating you more like a pet than a person like the others had been doing. It felt a little strange to only be realizing this now, but at least you’d recognized it sooner rather than later. You supposed that you understood him a little better now.

When Edge simply put on a movie, that was much less violent than you would have thought he’d enjoy, - you’d never would have guessed that he’d pick a romcom to watch without the others around to push him into it - you found yourself relaxing against him. You even cuddled into him a bit as a smile grew on your face as you watched the movie together. The fact that Edge was probably thinking about the back rubs he was giving you as no different than petting an animal was a little off putting, but it felt nice so you decided not to dwell on it. This was a nice and soft moment you were sharing with the tall skeleton, and you didn’t want to ruin it.

The sound of the movie was up pretty loud, and drowned out most of the rumbling noises, which was definitely something you were silently thanking Edge for. Though since you were cuddled close to him, you could feel it as he also seemed to shake when particularly loud rumbles would still be heard over the movie. Glancing up at his face showed no change in expression even as he trembled at the sound alongside you, and you were sure that if you weren’t against him like this, you wouldn’t have even noticed that he was reacting to the noise at all. Had he trembled like this with other bouts of that rumbling before?

So the two of you cuddled in the recliner and watched a couple romcoms together as you passed the time. Sometime before the others got home, the rumbling had decided it’d finally had enough and it hadn’t been back for a while. Noticing this himself, Edge turned the sound down on the tv and the two of you continued to watch.

When the time came for the others to be home soon, Edge took his scarf back from around your neck. A while left you since it’d been so nice and warm and now your neck was cold. Edge simply chuckled quietly and pushed you to stand up. With a yawn and stretch, you sent the skeleton a questioning glance. He shooed you off to the front door as he turned off the movie the two of you had been watching and went about switching the channel to some cooking show.

Confused, you walked into the hallway just in time for the door to burst open. You jumped back before a red and white blur came and swept you up into their hold. “HUMAN!!” A panicked noise left you as you struggled a little at the sudden grip, but you gave up quickly and just let yourself go limp. That didn’t stop the newcomer from swinging you around a little.

“PAPYRUS! I WANT TO HUG THE HUMAN HELLO TOO!” You swayed a little on your feet when you were put down. The next hug was less sudden, but the force behind it still had you stumbling.

A small scoff came from the doorway behind you. “HONESTLY, IF YOU WANT TO BREAK THE HUMAN EVEN MORE, THEN YOU TWO ARE CERTAINLY ON THE RIGHT TRACK FOR THAT.” Well it seemed as if you had the ruder Edge back, but at least you knew why he had ended the movie and cuddles. As Papyrus and Blue fretted over if they had hurt you, you caught sight of a small, genuine feeling smile on Edge’s face as he leaned against the side of the doorway to the living room.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Puzzles and piano.

The evening was quiet peaceful. Razz and Hickory came home maybe an hour after the other two while Razz complained about being held up by his ‘inferior subordinates’ and Hickory was as attentive as a bright eyed puppy who was curious about something. It was kind of cute, in a strange way. You didn’t have too much time to dwell on it as Papyrus and Blue were dragging you off to complete their puzzles with them. Though you could still hear Edge’s angry sputters when Razz yelled dibs for cooking supper.

You were in your second hour of pretending to be, well, puzzled by the puzzles you were presented with by the time Blue and Papyrus got fully distracted by their friendly argument about what kind of puzzle was harder. After they’d vaguely started about an hour ago, you’d made sure to pretend to be equally stumped by those puzzles as to avoid making either of them upset in any way. While you didn’t think they’d turn on you for making one seem easier than the other, it still wasn’t a fun idea to upset either of them since the thought of doing so just caused an uncomfortable tug at your soul that you had to avoid physically reacting to.

With them distracted, you nabbed a nearby sudoku book and flipped through to the hardest puzzles in the book so that you’d have something to work on for a while. It looked like somebody had been working through this section, so you kept flipping until you found one of the double sided papers that was completely untouched. Silently tearing paper was a difficult task. Luckily, you had some leeway with the noise given that the arguing skeletons were both being pretty loud. Once the page was free, you folded it and slipped it into a pocket. Sure, you wouldn’t have access to the solutions of the puzzles this way, but you were sure you wouldn’t need them. So you slid the book back into its spot with much caution, trying to make it appear as if you’d never so much as even looked at the thing.

That out of the way, you began to actually work on the puzzles you’d been given. You were a little bored and you’d figured out good portions of a couple of them in your time stalling. Plus… Well, you didn’t want to make Blue and Papyrus feel like you hadn’t given it any effort. Sure, you were probably writing a bit too fast and solving these a bit too quickly, but you had no desire to drag this out much longer. They were interesting puzzles, but you’d seen the likes of these plenty. While you could solve them, you much preferred the sudoku. If you got these finished quickly then you could maybe be left to your own devices so you could start to work on that.

You were maybe half way through two different puzzles at the same time when the front door opened. There was no call of greeting from the newcomers, but the sound of Edge starting to reprimand Red for his tardiness let you know that at least he was home. It was cut off quickly though, and everything in you screamed out that that was wrong and you needed to see what was going on. Couldn’t exactly ignore that sinking feeling in your soul with how strong it was either. So you got up, dropping the superhero pen you’d been lent - apparently there was a human superhero though from what you’d heard about them it seemed like they were more of an anti-hero which made sense given the position of humans in this society.

Papyrus and Blue didn’t even seem to notice anything was going on as you exited the room. Can’t exactly blame them with the complex sounding argument they seemed to be having - you hadn’t really been paying attention. It was probably safer if they stayed behind anyway. If there was a danger out there that had managed to catch Edge off guard, then you didn’t want to put them near it. Your mind danced over ideas of what to expect as you prowled towards the stairs to the main floor. All your senses were on high alert and you could feel energy coursing through you, preparing you for anything. You fingers twitched, ready for any surprise attack or need for quick reflexes.

That all froze and drained away when you saw what had really cut Edge off. Red was definitely there - Stretch and Sans will him - and for lack of a better wording, he looked like shit - they all did. Clothes wrinkled and creased in ways that suggested that they’d been held in whatever position for a long period of time. Nobody’s sweater or jacket was on them right, as if they’d been thrown on haphazardly. Then there were the oil stains, not only dotted randomly on their clothes - though missing from their outerwear to suggest that they hadn’t been wearing them during whatever they’d been doing - but also smeared on their skulls. Red had a large smear on the top and back left side of his skull - likely from him rubbing the spot with oil covered hands - which almost made it look like he had a hole there, the thought of which had you quickly looking away as your soul fluttered away from the thought. Sans just had a large smear with a few smaller spots near it on his right cheek and it like of looked like something had dripped on him and he’d tried to wipe it off. You had to stop yourself from outwardly expressing your amusement and discomfort at the sight of him with that smear - even though it seemed nobody had yet noticed you. Stretch’s smear had you smiling before you could even think about what you were doing. A smear ran up over his skull on the right side from near the top of his eye socket as if he’d rubbed over his head while thinking, and there was a small smear under his left socket that spread down to near his mouth like he’d been scratching at an itch. Overall, it was a bizarre sight to behold. Most of all though, the three skeletons looked tired, and Red looked peeved as he was glaring at Edge. Edge looked just as flabbergasted as you felt.

Edge seemed to recover quickly enough. “WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO YOU?”

“power outage at th’ labs. we had to go fix shit that got interrupted ‘n screwed over by th’ sudden loss of power even if it was temporary thanks t’ the generator they got.” Red sounded about as happy as he looked.

Stretch stepped in before the two sharp skeletons could be at each other’s cervical vertebrae. “just let us go clean up. food’s being made, right? we can eat after we’re done if it’s ready soon.”

“WELL THEN YOU CRETINS HAD BETTER HURRY UP! IT’S PRACTICALLY ALREADY FINISHED!” Razz yelled out from the kitchen. Stretch and Sans then began moving to the staircase you were on as Red grumbled before heading to the basement.

Stretch and Sans paused towards the bottom of the staircase when they noticed you. Not wanting to get in trouble, you quickly lowered your head and moved up and out of the way so they could come up. Blue and Papyrus chose that moment to come out of their puzzle room worriedly calling for you. Papyrus noticed you first and gasped out a relieved noise. “THERE YOU ARE HUMAN! WHY’D YOU LEAVE THE ROOM?” He paused, noticing his brother and Stretch on the stairs. “SANS?! WHAT HAPPENED TO YOU?”

“long day.” Was the only response Sans gave before you could feel that he teleported away. You didn’t see him again until supper, where he seems to still be ignoring you. Your soul aches, but you stay like the good pet you are and keep to yourself.

 

Turns out the skeletons were quite the busy bodies. They’d been busy with work for the rest of the week, leaving you to your own devices in the house. Thankfully there’d been no return of that rumbling noise, though the sky had been grey with clouds the first half of the week, and most cloudy the rest of the week. That’s what the skeletons had said when talking about the weather anyway. They’d also mentioned something about a thunderstorm? You’d heard of them, but you don’t know if you’ve ever seen one. Unless that’s what was going on that day that all that loud rumbling occured. While you didn’t know if the sky could fall, you’d rather not find out. So hopefully you’d never have to deal with at least that rumbling again. It was a bad noise.

The place felt big and empty without the presence of at least one other soul, but the lingering magic in the air helped dull that lonely feeling a bit. The game room had a fun mix of exuberant feeling magic that gently brushed over you and left you with a bit more energy, and a bitter feeling magic that you could only connect to defeat, along with a spicy tang of pure rage. Meanwhile the living room had a calm air of magic about it. A sense of peace and common ground and it made you feel right at home. The fact that the piano was in there also helped you feel a bit more at ease in the room. You’d taken to sitting on its bench when you could think of nothing else to do. Often you’d stare at the keys, the itch to play despite however long it’d been since you last did so would creep up on you as you sat there. You’d always move to elsewhere in the house when that happened, not wanting to mess with it in case you weren’t allowed to touch it. Not like the skeletons had scolded you for touching it before, but they’d been there to watch what you were doing and make sure you didn’t break it. Not like you thought you would, but when around monsters in this place, you could never be too certain.

Eventually the lure of wanting to play pulled you in. With nobody around and nothing beyond the sudoku to do really - snacks were pre-made for you so you assumed they didn’t want you to cook - it was inevitable that it’d draw you in. It was nearing noon, but nobody was due home until the evening, so you had a few hours to play before you would be caught. Surely you could do that just fine. It seemed nobody had noticed that you’d taken that sudoku page yet, so you were sure you could get away with things here as long as nobody noticed that you did them. Probably not a good philosophy, but you were scared of whatever punishment you could get for anything. You really didn’t want to risk them punishing you like your old master. You were good, it just seemed like the skeletons were more okay with you being more explorative. It’s not like you’ve been hurt by them yet beyond Hickory, but he still seemed like he was feeling guilty over that. Guilt over the pain you were put through by your old master’s will was something you’d never witnessed - though if there had been guilt, it could have been hidden from you pretty quickly given that you were… chained… to a single room. You doubted there was any guilt there though.

A sigh pulled itself from your mouth before you let yourself lightly go over a few old warm ups you still remembered. Thinking about your old master would get you nowhere. Instead you focused on the sounds that filled the air. A simple melody you used to play to soothe yourself rang through the air and it felt right. Having the presence of music to fill the strangeness of this house which couldn’t seem to figure out what sort of song it wanted to play. Some places were voids of silence that had you feel so alone - the puzzle room was like that if nobody was in there with you - and then there were randomly scattered patches of music, but it was so unpredictable as to what song was played where. The house was distracting because of that if you tried to listen for it’s music, so instead of listening, you blocked it out. This place in general was strange when it came to the music of the world or souls.

Satisfied with your warm ups, and tired of being distracted by the thoughts of just another reason as to why this place was so different from home, you gave a quiet hum to yourself as you thought of what song you’d like to play. It didn’t take long until your fingers were moving again, muscle memory taking over as if you’d been made for nothing more than to play piano. The low notes flowed soothingly, and the higher notes danced together in a way that reminded you of snow. It had a happy tone and you found yourself smiling as you closed your eyes. With them closed like this you could practically see and feel it: your hometown. Soft snow you’d loved to play in with your brothers, the smiling faces of the other inhabitants going about their daily lives and enjoying watching you and the other kids run around. The nice lady who ran the shop and would sneak you old food stock that was still good to eat. Sparkling lights of an array of colours lighting up the world when everything outside was otherwise lit by a dim blue. Small flowers that grew despite the cold, and the old trees that stood strong even under all the snow that weighed down their branches. Snowball fights, and that one time you’d accidentally hit your father as he was walking out of the house. He’d sworn revenge and had playfully chased you around town with snowballs of his own as one brother turned on you to join him and the other valiantly attempted to save you. You’d all ended up covered in snow and when you went home you’d gotten cups of hot chocolate to help combat the cold. Giggles bubbled up in your throat even as you felt your cheeks getting wet. You missed home. It was cold in its location, but the inhabitants made it oh so warm at the same time.

When you stopped, song dying out and your emotions breaking the walls you’d built slowly, the sound of clapping had you freeze and go stiff. A heavy breath left you and you brought an arm up to wipe at your eyes and you slowly turned to look at who was there. Your somewhat blurry vision didn’t hinder your ability to make out Papyrus in the doorway to the living room. He had a smile on his face and also appeared to have tears in his eyes. “Human…” his voice was quiet and sad. “I don’t know why, but… That made me feel like I was missing something. Something I didn’t even notice until now. I’d like to ask you if you knew why, but I know you don’t talk…” Everything in you wanted to get up and hug Papyrus as you watched him wipe his tears away. “I won’t ask where you learned to play, and I know I’m home early, but please, could you play another song?” How could you say no to that? Of course, a happier song was in order to combat all these tears.

The song was upbeat and you could practically hear your friend who owned a piano to play harder so everyone could feel your passion. Though this song always got her pumped up and it was a blessing that she loved her piano as much as she did or else it might not have survived all of her excited rampaging. You were grinning widely as you thought about the memory. Papyrus was smiling when you turned around after you were done too. A proud feeling rose in your chest. Not only were you not in trouble for playing the piano, but you’d made him happy.

“That reminded me of one of my friends that you have met to meet,” Papyrus laughed lightly to himself. “But…” The sudden change in demeanor from a happy skeleton to a bashful one had you on edge. What was going on? “Um… Could you teach me?” You blinked at the skeleton whose face was slowly starting to glow with a blush. “The- The piano I mean. It doesn’t get much use and it’d be nice to know how to play.” A grin spread across your face and you nodded. That sounded like a wonderful idea and you already knew what you wanted to teach him. It had been one of your brothers’ favourite song. You pat the bench next to you as you slid over to make room and Papyrus eagerly hopped over to join you. He’d need to learn the basics first, but you were determined to teach him at least the one song eventually, even if it took multiple lessons.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not as long as I would have liked this chapter to be, but I had a bit of writer's block and I didn't end up getting many ideas or motivation until today, so I just finished this. On another note, would anyone be interested if I made a tumblr for my writing? It'd probably end up having more than just this story on it eventually, drabbles and any other stories I write if I do that - I have had an idea for another story, but I've wanted to focus on this one for a while. Though I do think I'll need to have something to break up my writing of this story so I don't get burnt out anyway.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sans and souls.

As it turns out, trying to teach without talking or some other form of communication beyond gestures is difficult. Papyrus, bless his soul, was an eager student and seemed to understand you pretty well, but there were still gaps between the two of you. It’d probably taken half an hour of your time to just get across that you think he should get a practise book after you thought of the idea after showing him some basic notes and warm ups. The materials you had learned from had been old and damaged and you couldn’t make out half the stuff, but you’d learned a lot by ear too. You barely knew what stood for what letter on what scale, but at one point you’d taken to memorize the sound each note made - though you were finding that your memorization was somewhat failing you after however long it’d been since you’d last even looked at a piano, let alone heard or played one. Luckily, Papyrus wasn’t pushing you and you’d almost guess he had patience as part of his soul if it weren’t for the fact that he seemed quite the opposite with his excited wiggling around in his spot on the bench.

You’d managed to at least teach him the first few notes of the song before the sound of the front door opening sounded out through the house once more. Your whole body went stiff at the sound, but Papyrus didn’t seem to notice as he was busy practising the beginning notes of the song again - you’d barely heard the noise yourself, but however long you’d spent with only a door and footsteps as your warning to your old master coming had made you more aware of those noises. Your breathing slowed and you stayed still as a statue as you listened to the soft footfalls coming towards the living room as Papyrus continued to play. They stopped at where you were pretty sure the doorway was, though you made no move to check. With your hands in your lap, you pretended to just be sitting there listening to Papyrus trying to play as if this was something he was working on on his own. Just because somebody knew you could play piano, didn’t mean you were comfortable with everybody knowing. You could only guess what they had thought about seeing you fight, and it wasn’t exactly the greatest ideas that were coming to your head. You’d heard your old master talk about humans who were trained to fight, and it didn’t sound pretty.

Papyrus went to turn to you after finishing practising what you’d had him do only to pause when a voice spoke up from the doorway. “sounding nice pap.” So instead of turning to look at you, Papyrus turned around to face his brother. Thinking it would see weird if you didn’t follow suit, you turned while bringing your legs around the edge of the bench. Sans had his gaze focused on Papyrus, though you noticed his gaze flicker to the piano before returning to his brother. “any reason why you’re  _ waltzing _ into the piano scene now?”

“OF COURSE IT SOUND-” Papyrus cut himself off and leveled a deadpan expression at Sans as if just processing the pun. You could feel a smile threatening to curl at your lips at his reaction, especially when Sans started laughing. It all just felt so natural and normal and you could almost pretend you were home if you ignored everything but this scenario for the moment. That small fantasy was broken easily as Papyrus spoke up again. “YOU SHOULDN’T GO AND RUIN THE MOMENT! NOT AFTER THE HUMAN WAS KIND ENOUGH TO START TEACHING ME!”

Sans’s gaze was quickly turned to you and you could feel a pang in your woul at the sight of eye sockets devoid of light. “she is, huh?” He didn’t sound like he believed that, but he said nothing further.

You didn’t even have time to really think about Sans’s response before Papyrus was up on his feet and walking towards the shorter skeleton. “BROTHER! WE’VE TALKED ABOUT THIS!” Sans’s eye lights came back as he looked at the taller skeleton, small beads of sweat appearing on his forehead. He looked like he wanted to say something, but his gaze darted over to you before returning to his brother. “Human. Could you please leave the room? Apparently we need to have another talk and it might be better if we alone for this.” Papyrus sighed as he brought one hand up to his head to rub as if he was starting to get a headache. Nodding you slid off the piano bench and walked to the doorway of the living room as Sans moved passed you to go into the room more.

Though it could possibly still get you in trouble, you stopped so that you were just out of view of the doorway, but could still hear what the two were talking about. You were curious about what was going on, but if anybody came home then you’d be caught and then you’d likely get punished. However you were pretty sure it was still a little early for at least Blue, Edge, and Razz to be back - Hickory was usually with Razz when he got home, but not always. You pressed your back against the wall and leaned as close to the open doorway as you dared. You’d made sure to go to the side where if you had to make a hasty retreat you could quickly run off to the stairs to the basement if you had time. If you didn’t have time, well, you’d make due. Your older brother had taught you a few tricks to avoid getting caught - not like they’d helped when your old master got a hold of you, but you’d been caught off guard.

“look pap. she’s dangerous. you saw how she jumped at razz to attack him.” Sans’s voice was almost too hard to make out because he was speaking in a harsh whisper.

Papyrus let out a frustrated sigh. “That’s because Razz demanded that she fight him and neither him, nor Hickory gave her a way out of it.” The serious voice was a little off putting given how upbeat and happy Papyrus had been when the two of you had been at the piano, though the switch in attitude was perfectly justifiable give the situation.

An annoyed grunt sounded like it came from Sans. “doesn’t change the fact that she knows how to fight and that could be dangerous. i’ve told you to stay away from her just in case she ends up being more unstable or aggressive than she seems.” That made your soul throb sadly. You hadn’t meant to make Sans not trust you by listening to Razz, and you never had any intention on hurting any of you skeletal masters anyway. Beyond fearing punishment for your actions, there was only a handful of monsters you really did want to hurt, but that was your old master and your old master’s friends - even then you didn’t want to kill them, just wanted them to pay for their horrid actions.

“She doesn’t seem like she’s that kind of person Sans! Besides, you should know as well as I that human souls are weaker than monster souls anyway, so it’s not like she could do much harm even if she tried. Why do I have to keep reminding you despite the fact that you should know more about this than I do?” Papyrus sounded annoyed with his brother, but your thoughts had started to haze together and blur after the comment about the strength of souls. That wasn’t right. It can’t be right. Unless this place was different?

You could hear that the two were still talking, but you couldn’t listen anymore, your mind was rushing like a waterfall and you had to get somewhere where you could deal with it without anybody thinking you were eavesdropping. That and you really just wanted some alone time. You  _ needed _ some alone time, but who knew how long you’d be allowed to have it. You were a pet meant to keep them company and entertain after all, alone time wasn’t something that was exactly part of that job description.

Despite the river of thoughts rushing through you, you were aware of your surroundings enough to make sure that you were as silent as possible. You still didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping - who knew what Sans would think about that, or how hurt Papyrus might be. You didn’t want to find out. So you were gone and off towards the steps towards the basement without really thinking. There was only one space you could kind of call your own in this house and you were going to use it.

The front door opened as you were on your way down the stairs, but you barely registered it. You were sure you heard somebody calling into the house though your thoughts muddled the sound to the point where you weren’t even sure who was home. It didn’t matter. If they wanted to punish you for not greeting them when they got home, there was nothing you could do about it now. You just needed to get to your room.

The door clicked shut behind you once you were in and you could feel your legs shaking, but you didn’t want to just sink to the floor. Your eyes fell on the bed, still untouched as you’d still been too afraid to use it. Walking into the room, you found you didn’t care anymore. Well, you were still scared of being punished for using when you hadn’t been told you could, but if they were going to punish you for not being at the front door, then this could just be added on top of that. Besides, you were used to punishments and you really just needed this comfort at the moment.

So you crawled onto the bed and curled up under the blankets. It didn’t feel quite right and so you pulled the pillow under with you so you could hug it. You hadn’t had time to miss your stuffed animals until now, but for now this pillow would have to make due as a substitute. Tears were pushing past your eyes despite the fact that you tried to stop them. You didn’t understand this place and you wanted to go home. The longing and loss weighed heavy on your soul even as your mind jumped back to the simple sentence that had brought this all on. Papyrus had said that human souls were weaker than monster souls. That wasn’t right. It wasn’t, but that was how things were at home. Was this place different in that regard? Why though? Why would the strength of souls change? Was your soul different from other human souls then, or were the monster souls here just stronger? It didn’t make sense. As far as you knew, there was no place that changed this fact, so why here? It didn’t make sense. This place was strange and you knew that, but you didn’t think it was this strange.

A shuddering breath shook your frame as you closed your eyes and tried to focus on what you knew to try and figure out if you could see how all of this worked. From weakest to strongest in terms of souls when it came to humans and monsters, it started with normal monsters as the weakest souls as they were beings made of magic and so their souls were weaker because they were more susceptible to change just like the magic that made them. The second weakest was Boss Monsters, their souls stronger than a normal monster’s because of the fact that they had more physical matter to them, however they still had vast amounts of magic that kept their soul weaker than any human’s. Then came human magic users - it didn’t matter what you called them if the premise of this was the same - who had the benefit of a completely physical body, but the soul was brought down in strength a little due to the nature of magic itself. With the strongest souls, humans were the best in a hand to hand combat sort of fight, their determination helping them plow through it all. Perhaps the hierarchy of soul strength was flipped on its head here? That didn’t make sense, not unless the very fundamentals of magic were different in this place.

Your thoughts were shaken with distraction as a quiet sob left you. One of your hands moved up to grasp at nothing which only made you sob harder. This world was confusing and had taken so much from you. You just wanted to go home. Go home to where things made sense. Go home to where you had your family and friends. Go home to where you were safe and you knew there was nothing to fear. You soul was throbbing with anguish you couldn’t reign under control, and at the moment you barely had the energy to try. If things still had some semblance of how you knew they should work, then it was likely the skeletons who were in the house would be able to feel your soul’s torment with how strong the feeling was rolling off of you, but you couldn’t stop your soul from screaming. It hurt and you just wanted to return to the safety of the world that had kept you from pain like what your old master had put you through.

There was a knock on the door. A voice that seemed like it wanted to soothe you, and the feeling of a soul trying to do the same for yours. You couldn’t make out the words of whoever was there as you curled up into a smaller ball as you blocked them out and away from your soul. You didn’t want them to see it, or even get close to feeling it. If your soul really was different enough from other humans in this world that you might be stronger and therefore stand out more due to just your soul, then you didn’t want them getting near it. Not only did you have to hide and protect it because it was your very lifeforce, you also had to do so because of all the other surprises - most likely bad - that could come about from them discovering your soul was so different. Sans already didn’t trust you because he thought you were dangerous, and if it was found out you were somehow a lot stronger than they thought you should be it could mean that you would be trusted even less. Maybe the others would even stop trusting you and you’d be taken away to get your soul probed and eventually dissected. You couldn’t have that, you needed to stay together so that you could find your brothers. The skeleton household here was as close to freedom as you’d felt in a long time and maybe if you stayed you could find a way to locate your brothers. You couldn’t lose this chance. Though it was likely you’d end up in just as bad of places if they found out too much about you. Like if they found out that everything here was your fault. What was your life worth when it came to fixing your mistakes? Especially when they were this big.

Eventually whoever was outside the door left. You don’t get why they didn’t just come in, but a part of you was glad for this tiny bit of privacy. A few others came around one by one and there was always gaps of time between, though you couldn’t tell how long. You didn’t care. It made no sense why they didn’t come in if they wanted to, but you decided not to look at a gift for its flaws. It wasn’t until your stomach growled that you found out why they hadn’t come in, or at least you were pretty sure that was the reason. At some point your dresser had moved to sit in front of the door. You don’t remember doing that, but then again there was also a plate of food for you in the middle of the floor and you don’t remember the feeling of any of the skeletons teleporting in either.

Racking your mind to see if you could try and pinpoint a time either of these could have happened at, or at least a timeline of some kind, you realized that was going to be a lot more difficult than it sounded. You’d been a flurry of thoughts and emotions for the past however much time had passed and so the rest of the world was kind of vague in your head. You knew there had been visits to your door, but beyond that pretty much everything else that happened outside of your spot under the blankets had been blocked out.

As questions of why the skeleton who had brought you the plate of food hadn’t done anything other than that ate away at your mind, you tentatively crawled out of the bed to go eat. However you paused halfway off the soft resting place when another thought bubbled up. What if they’d left the food without bother you because it was drugged somehow and sometime after you ate it, they’d come take you to wherever they were going to punish you. They could tie you down so you couldn’t even dream of being free of the shackles and then one or more of them could punish you for whatever they wished. As much as you knew you deserved whatever punishment they had for you, you were still scared of whatever they could do to you. So, with a longing glance at the food, you retreated back into the safety of hiding under the blankets with that pillow to hug. Maybe it was a test anyway, to see if you knew whether you messed up and could properly punish yourself. It didn’t matter in the end, neither did your grumbling stomach that was protesting this decision. Until you were home, or at least with family and friends, you couldn’t trust anything. You were nothing and life didn’t care if you made it out okay.

With an empty stomach and tired mind, you closed your eyes. Maybe tomorrow would be a better day. You could only hope. That’s all you had that couldn’t be stolen from you anymore. Hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ended up finishing this one a little early but got distracted by video games and almost forgot to post it. Oops. In other words, I made a tumblr just for stuff related to my writing. Maybe I'll post art for these stories over there if I ever draw any too. So feel free to go over there and just say hi or ask me questions - within reason of course since I don't want to give too many spoilers - or maybe drop a small writing prompt off for me to mess with in the event I get stuck and need something else to work on that could help inspire me for the story. Maybe just drop on over with an idea of something you want to see in the story that I might implement. I have some major plot points jotted out for this story, but smaller scenes are more up in the air. And just in case I don't post this week, I will be gone on the Wednesday afterwards, so I won't be able to update then.
> 
> Tumblr: skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Your majesty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was supposed to go up yesterday, but I got really busy with family so here it is today.

“No need to appear so restless, princess,” a warm laugh scolded gently. Light giggles followed. “We’re almost done now.”

A sigh parted your lips as you forced away the urge to sag your shoulders. “I know, and I do apologize for my behaviour, Chern. It’s just that I don’t know what my father summoned me form nor do I understand why you and Corduroy insist on dressing me up for the occasion. I doubt he’d mind much if I came dressed more casual.” Well, it was a mi of not thinking that he minded and having your nerves be on the fritz as you worried over what this might be about. Perhaps it could be about your elder brother? e had left quite some time ago to visit a tribe of warriors who could sometimes be found along your southern borders or even just within them. Had your father received word of his situation and came across something so noteworthy that he had to tell you in person instead of send word via a messenger? The only thing that came to mind was if your elder brother was getting married somehow. While that was possible, you didn’t think it was likely.

“Cheer up miss! Today will be a good day!” The excitement of the other human helped sooth the thoughts running through your head. Corduroy was Chern’s assistant and the two took care of your wardrobe and for whatever read they had decided that you had to look as if you were to be entertaining guests, but surely your father would have told you of this when he sent for you. In fact, if there were visitors to the castle you should have been notified so that you could greet them. Unless there was some visitor who came unannounced to talk about private manners with your father, but that would not explain why you were possibly meeting them.

Whatever the reason, you would soon find out as the two attending you were just doing the final touches and then you could go see your father. Chern was straightening out fabric and ribbon to give your dress a pristine appearance. On the other hand, Corduroy was fussing over your accessories and trying to get the slight poof of the skirt as big as she could get it. It was no ball gown, but you’d still probably pass if you were to go to one now.

Once finished with that, the walk to the throne room felt short enough - though perhaps that was the result of your curious thoughts distracting you. You bid farewell to the two royal guards that made up your escort over and nodded to the two standing in front of the doors. Ready to enter, you found yourself standing taller out of habit. The doors swung slowly open with all the commotion that accompanied the large ornamental structures of thick wood and metal. That alone signaled your arrival, but a guard stepped forward to announce you anyway. It seemed your father had guests after all. There would be no need to announce you if it was just him. After all, he would be expecting you. Though his guests might not know you or be expecting your presence.

As expected, your father sat upon his lone throne at the far end of the hall. Unexpected were the guests who stood together in pairs. All of them were skeletons dressed in the fine attire denoting their status of wealth. Likely all of them were monsters born into the lifestyle given the ways with which they held themselves. Some had obviously had a history with being soldiers or guards, the four who had outfits mainly comprised of black in particular stood out for this.

“My angel, I am so glad that you have finally arrived.” Your father’s voice redirected your attention towards him. He sat tall and his eyes held wisdom he’d gained over the course of his reign so far.

You gave your father a nod of acknowledgement as you walked up to stand by his left side. “I apologize if I kept you waiting Papa. Chern and Corduroy insisted that I changed before coming to see you.” You brought your hands in front of you to grab one wrist loosely.

“A good decision on their part. You look quite lovely. Certainly the perfect attire for my angel to meet the suitors I’ve picked out for her.” For a moment you felt like your heart stopped. As if sensing your confusion, your father continued. “You are already past the age that many young women marry at.” Despite knowing your father had the best intentions when making this decision and that he was still giving you a decision of your own to make, a part of you couldn’t help but feel betrayed in a way. You knew it was your duty to be married off to help strengthen the bonds between your kingdom and another, yet you couldn’t help the feeling that there was so much more to life. It felt like something was off and missing. Maybe that was just because you didn’t feel ready to get married off. That was likely just a selfish thought though. This was your duty - though a little warning about what this meeting was about would have been nice. Any forewarning would have been nice for something this important. Even with all these thoughts bouncing around your mind, you kept your expression in a small, polite smile. It was important that you left a good impression on all of these monsters your father had thought were good enough to be potential suitors for you. If you somehow offended one of them and caused strained relations between your kingdoms, you’d feel extremely guilty. You would do your best to avoid even accidentally offending them. So no matter how much you wanted to question your father now, you’d wait however long you’d need in order to speak with him about this in private.

Instead, you took this time to take in the chosen suitors. Four pairs who kept to themselves all had their focus on you. It almost felt like some of them were trying to peer at your soul, and reflexively you double checked that it was kept concealed - souls were important and given who you were, it was very important that you only revealed it to those you trusted deeply. The four in the outfits of mainly black had outfits that, while not armoured, appeared ready for battle at a moment’s notice. They also had pointer appearances than the other two pairs. One of the two pairs with softer edges wore thicker clothing comprised of soft colours with hints of white scattered about. Then the last pair had looser clothing dyed in brilliant colours - the shorter of the two even bore a jacket that kept that flowy look. Two things stood out about these skeletons to you. The first was that they all appeared to be different versions of one another almost, though the way they separated themselves and the different styles of clothing suggested they were of different kingdoms. Even if they were related, the resemblance was too similar to be normal. A part of you nagged at the back of your mind about how this was important, but the reasoning for this eluded you. It was a bizarre feeling that you weren’t used to feeling. Something told you that you’d be feeling that more often from now on. Though the second thing you had noticed probably baffled you more than the strange feeling. Each pair of skeletons had the insignia of the royal families from what you could only assume to be their home kingdoms that were emblazoned upon their outfits. That made no sense to you as they should be wearing the crest of the family they come from and that you would be marrying into. You knew the royal families that those insignias represented and none of them had skeletal members. While you hadn’t seen or heard from them in years, it was still a strange thought that they’d send possibly adopted children you didn’t know - granted, their other children were probably still too young for marriage. Why your father had gone along with this was also a mystery. Something you’d also have to bring up with him later.

Deciding that you - and honestly the whole room - had been quiet long enough, you quickly pieced together something to say that hopefully wouldn’t upset anyone. “I apologize for my silence. It’s just that it seems that somewhere along the line that the thought to notify me of the importance of this meeting was lost. I am a little overwhelmed by this development. Please don’t blame them as this all does feel a little last minute and I’m sure it just got swept away in the commotion.” You noticed that as you spoke, two of the softer skeletons relaxed their slightly tense stances. Two of the sharper skeletons looked like they wanted to say something, but decided it was better to keep it to themselves - probably to avoid offending you, whom they wished to win the favour of, or your father, who also happened to be the king of a kingdom with which their own had business ties with in one way or another. Seems they also wished to play it safe; for the moment at least. You’d have to wait and see how this would turn out.

“I do believe I am the one who forgot to have you informed, though you were right about the fact that this was a bit last minute. There was a rush for all sides involved.” While surprised by your father’s confession, you had a feeling that he hadn’t actually forgotten. Though, to be fair, if you had known what this meeting was about, then you might have attempted to find an excuse not to come and your father probably knew this just as well. The fact about it being rushed was strange. You father didn’t like things to be rushed, he liked to plan things out - more so when it came to something important to him like you would have thought your betrothal would be. So the fact that this was a rush hurt a little. “I was hoping that you could spend each of the coming days with one of your suitors. Today will be a day for you to gather you thoughts, but tomorrow onwards will be spent with one of them so that you may grow to know them. All of them shall be staying here as this goes on.”

“Actually papa, I would like to speak with you in private today if your schedule would allow.” You had to say it now, or else it may never come out. Getting to know these strangers was still something that you were looking forward to, even if the prospect of marriage still wasn’t alluring to you.

Your father turned to give you a smile. “I have some time after this, but go greet them first at least.” You gave your father a quick nod before moving to go down and say hi. They already knew who you were, so perhaps you could learn a little about who they were before you would spend a day with each of them - maybe that could even help you come up with things you could talk about with them.

The tall skeleton in bright oranges and reds bounced towards you, the other skeleton in bright blues trailed along after him. He reached you first, though the short one wearing white and a pale blue was also trotting over. “GREETINGS PRINCESS!!” You smile grew wider at the enthusiastic tone which this skeleton greeted you with. He seemed genuinely interested in you as a person as you couldn’t think of a single person you met that had wanted you for your position who had mustered this much genuine feeling energy. He was practically vibrating with it. “I AM THE GREAT PAPYRUS! IT IS A PLEASURE TO MEET YOU.”

“Likewise, great Papyrus.” You decided to humor the title he introduced himself with. “I look forward to getting to know you over the coming days.”

“and i, you.” A voice right next to you caused you to startle and spin to look at the owner of the voice as Papyrus was too busy ‘NYEH HEH HEH’ing to notice. The other brightly clad skeleton stood there and winked at you as you wondered how he got there without you noticing. “my name is sans and papyrus is my brother.” He offered his hand for you to shake. The strange feeling returned, this time it was directed towards the handshake. It was as if properly shaking it would lead to something not entirely desirable. So, being the smart person that you were, you forwent your gut instinct telling you not to shake the hand and reached out anyway - you didn’t want to be rude after all. However, instead of giving a firm grip like he was probably expecting, you gently slid your hand into his and lightly held his hand. You raised an eyebrow at him at the feeling of something in his hand and the grin on his face simply grew in return.

“SANS!!! DID YOU TRY TO PRANK THE PRINCESS??” Papyrus admonished from where he’d stopped his laughing. Sans simply shrugged as he pulled his hand back, prompting you to do the same. Disgruntled sounding, Papyrus turned to you. “EXCUSE US PRINCESS, IT SEEMS THAT I MUST REMIND MY BROTHER ABOUT HIS MANNERS.”

You shook your head. “I don’t mind. Though I should go greet the others now. So if you’d please excuse me.” Papyrus gave you a quick goodbye before turning to his brother to give him a lecture about manners. Interesting pair, the two of them.

the next pair you went to greet held the other excitable skeleton you noticed. Hs eye lights even changed into starts when he saw you moving towards them and you found it quite endearing. The other had a stick of some confectionary perched between his teeth as he leveled an appraising look in your direction. He turned his head away when he caught your gaze. The starry eyed skeleton however, waved at you excitedly. “HELLO M’LADY! IT’S A PLEASURE TO MEET YOU.” A quiet voice in the back of your mind echoed the word pleasure in the voice of another you felt like you should recognize, yet didn’t. For some reason, that echo sent shivers down your spine and waves of panic to your soul. With surprising ease you managed to not show any of that, but instead smiled sweetly at the greeting.

“Surely the pleasure is all mine.” Saying pleasure also made you feel sick for some reason - as if your soul itself was rejecting something. It was quite strange as you couldn’t think of why this would happen, there had to be a reason for this after all, and you couldn’t remember having this sort of reaction in the past.

Starry eyes grinned even wider. “OF COURSE MEETING THE MAGNIFICENT BLUE WOULD BE SUCH FOR YOU!! THOUGH I ASSURE YOU THAT IT IS INDEED WONDERFUL FOR MYSELF AS WELL. MY BROTHER, STRETCH PROBABLY FEELS SUCH AS WELL, I’M SURE.” That last part almost seemed tated on as an afterthought. Still, you smiled and nodded.

Stretch turned his gaze to meet yours once more after hearing his name. “Truly sweet of you to think so,” he responded to his brother without breaking eye contact with you except to give you a wink. The reaction was near instantaneous. Blue turned towards his brother with an outraged noise and began to vehemently tell him off for his ‘poor humour’ as you raised one hand to cover your mouth as you quietly giggled since stifling laughter was likely impossible for you at the moment with those two right there with their back and forth banter.

Getting a small wave from Stretch, you politely excused yourself to talk to one of the sharper pairs who seemed to be getting somewhat impatient. One of which held a skeleton who was wearing a tattered red scarf that drew your attention. Absentmindedly, your hand raised to grab your necklace at the sight of it. Almost like you had to confirm that your comfort object was still present, though you had no idea why as you always made sure it was the one object you put on yourself.

“IS THERE A REASON FOR YOUR STARING?” Startled, your gaze leapt up to the scowling face of the owner of the scarf. His arms were crossed in front of him as he leaned back a bit as if he didn’t want to be here doing this. Maybe he didn’t want to be a part of thi and he was made to go anyway for whatever reason?

Whatever that reason was for his apparent discontented mood, it just meant he probably needed somebody being nice to help alleviate it. “I’m sorry sir. I was just admiring your scarf. Surely it has many stories as to how it’s gained such a battle torn appearance. I look forward to getting to learn all about those as we get to know each other.”

“EDGE,” he said shortly after a moment of silence.

“I beg your pardon?” You blinked, baffled.

With a sigh as if it was obvious, he spoke again. “MY NAME IS EDGE.” Well now you felt a little stupid even though his name was also just a word he could have randomly said. “MY BROTHER RED ALSO ACCOMPANIED ME HERE, BUT HE SEEMS TO HAVE VANISHED. HOPEFULLY HE HAS NOT DECIDED TO GO LOOK FOR THE KITCHEN.”

“Well then I suppose I’ll just have to meet him in the coming days.” Despite saying this, something inside you was dreading that first meeting. Which was a preposterous feeling as you loved meeting new people and monsters.

“IT IS INEVITABLE.” The way Edge spoke didn’t add much of a positive light on your meeting with his brother either.

Not knowing what else to add, you decided to excuse yourself so that you could go greet the last pair. The taller of the pair bore a flat expression, as if waiting for you to do something that he could react to. The shorter skeleton had a closed off stance and an expression as if he was studying you. Even though they should have been intimidating to some degree, all you could feel was a small warmth in your soul towards them. “Even though I just found out about this series of events, I’m glad you could make it.” You brought your hands together in front of you as you smiled at them in greeting.

The shorter of the two frowned, so in response you tilted your head questioningly. He just sighed as if this was something he didn’t want to put effort into. “THIS WORLD IS JUST GOING TO EAT YOU UP.” It was stated as if it was a fact and you got the feeling it was basically him calling you weak in a way that was to try and avoid offending you enough to keep from incurring war.

Deciding to pull the ‘oblivious innocent’ card, you gave him your best smile. “Well then you better tell me your names so I can call for you when it tries.” Was that a little flirty? Either way, the taller of the two didn’t seem to like it as he narrowed his eyes at you. In response, you just turned your smile to him. He didn’t seem to know how to respond to that.

“I SUPPOSE IT’S ONLY NATURAL THAT YOU WOULD WISH TO CALL FOR ME SHOULD TROUBLE ARISE. I AM CERTAIN THAT I AM TRULY THE MOST CAPABLE HERE FOR SUCH A JOB.”  At his boasting, you felt something uncomfortable rise within you. Like something was happening that shouldn’t be. “I SUPPOSE YOU MAY CALL US IF YOU FEEL LIKE YOU’RE IN TROUBLE, BUT DO NOT EXPECT HELP. IN THE EVENT THAT SUCH A CASE SHOULD ARISE, MY NAME IS RAZZ AND THIS IS MY MUTT, HICKORY.” This was rubbing you all sorts of wrong, but you suppressed the responses you wanted to give. This just felt so off. Even with all of that, you had a feeling Hickory was actually Razz’s brother given all the other pairs. Why would anyone treat a sibling like that though? Even if they weren’t siblings, you still didn’t like that treatment of Hickory. Why does Hickory seem so okay with this? Your head was spinning slightly from all of this. So, you did what you were sure any sane person would do when faced with this situation, you found a way to get out of there as fast as possible.

“Thank you very much for your time, but I’d like to go speak with my father now while he’s still free.” You didn’t give them a chance to respond before you were already leaving. They were giving you mixed signals in your soul and you needed out of there. Luckily, you heard no protests and nobody tried to stop you.

As you approached your father, it sounded like he was trying to hide his chuckles. In response, you sent a hidden glare at him. So, as the others remained oblivious, the two of you had your quiet dispute. It continued with a bunch of small, non verbal back and forth as the two of you walked off to a private sitting room where you could talk. You were sure the guards noticed, what was going on, but your guests didn’t have the experience they did in order to be able to also be clued in.

Once alone, you got down to business. “Papa, why the sudden rush for suitors for me? And why them?” Not that you had anything against them, though the thing with Razz and Hickory was definitely strange.

You father sighed as if he had been expecting the question, but was hoping you wouldn’t ask. “There was an attack at a secret meeting among leaders of the different groups that currently stand united, though we could not attend as we had that festival we participated in.” If he was talking about the last festival you’d been to, then that attack wasn’t even a month ago. “It was devastating. Many attendees and guards lost their lives there and while most current leaders managed to get out with their lives, plenty of the heirs ended up being killed that day.”

“Why wasn’t I informed of this?!” If it was that bad, then why hadn’t anyone bothered to let you know? You’d known many of the united heirs and already you could feel your soul swelling with loss.

“I know it must hurt that this was hidden from you, but I did not want your kind heart to override everything else and put you in danger. I already feel like we’re next on the hit list of whoever was behind the attack since we did not appear at that meeting.”

“Who attacked to cause such death?”

“While I do not know for certain, some are saying that the ruler of negative emotions himself attacked, while others say it was the Destroyer who did it. It is entirely possible that they teamed up even.” Horror lanced through your soul at the thought. Those were two of the most dangerous beings in existence. Just once was bad, but if they had teamed up, then the devastation of that meeting could have been even worse than what it was. So if they had teamed up then most of the current united leaders getting out was practically a miracle in and of itself. Though, how did whoever did end up participating in that attack know of the meeting if it was a secret? That thought must have shown on your face as your father gave you a somber expression. “We do not know how they found out about the meeting, nor do we know how they got to the location without anyone noticing. In fact, none of the guards along any of the paths were injured until they came to the aid in fighting the threat, which means this was a planned attack with a target. That is why I suspect we may be targeted here yet. So that is why I wish for you to marry soon. All the suitors I have chosen for you are now heirs to their kingdoms after that attack, and live in kingdoms that will offer you plenty of protection in the event that any of them get attacked again. It is also my hope that a marriage might draw the guardian of hopes and dreams to us so that he can aid in protecting us should his brother or the Destroyer make an appearance.”

“Is that why you pushed for the negotiations with the warrior tribe to the south and for that knight training camp to happen as soon as possible?”

“Yes, I will keep you and your brothers safe. No matter what it takes. So even if I never get to see you again, as long as you are safe, then I will accept that fate.”

“But father, how can I rest peacefully when you could be in danger?” You watched your father’s expression shift - you rarely called him ‘father’ unless you were deeply troubled or being very serious, though you did refer to him as both ‘father’ and ‘dad’ when talking about him to others outside of your family and friends. His face softened and his shoulders sagged as he stepped forward to hug you. Automatically you were hugging him right back, your head falling onto his shoulder. In this moment you let yourselves be vulnerable while resting easy in the knowledge that you could do this because of the guards outside the room. For this moment, the two of you allowed yourselves to be not the wise king and gentle princess, but a burdened father and a troubled daughter who were simply finding comfort in one another’s presence. This was something you wished you could do more often, but your duties to your people kept this from you. They didn’t need the father and the daughter, they needed the king and the princess. Your father was sending you all away to keep you safe for the sake of the people so they could keep a ruler, and you had a duty to marry eventually. You’d marry and gain both a husband and a new people who had requirements of you. You’d symbolize a bond between the kingdoms and would gain the duty of bearing strong and healthy heirs to that throne - not exactly what you wanted from life yet, but after marriage it was likely that you’d be expected to have children as soon as possible so that there was an heir in the event something happened at any moment.

Your father pulled back to look at you with gentle eyes. “I will always love you. The world may tell you otherwise, and there may come a time where we never see each other ever again, or if we do, we will rarely see one another, but my love for you will never change. You are the lights of the sky that dance in hues-”

“The aurora borealis?” Your father had taught you this when you were young, so why wasn’t he referring to them by name?

Instead of gracing you with a verbal response, he just smiled. “Let your soul dance brightly so that the world can marvel at your beauty.” You playfully rolled your eyes at his flowery language before pulling him into another hug.

“I love you papa,” you muttered into him. His arms wrapped around you and gave you a quick squeeze as you both didn’t want to let the moment die.

 

Your first day spent with any of your suitors was spent with Sans. You’d been up bright and early like every other day and had been dressed in a simple dress so that you were ready for whatever you’d do. However you hadn’t been ready for Sans to pull you into his room for a lazy day on his bed. He didn’t even bother you for cuddles. It was nice, just hanging out and talking about whatever came to mind with no worries. He told you quite a few fun stories about his brother, and in return you told him about your brothers.

“hey,” Sans paused as if trying to find the right way to word what he wanted to say. For the first time since you had laid down, it seemed like Sans was hesitant to say what was on his mind. You reached a hand out and sought out one of his to hold and give a reassuring squeeze. He met your gaze and let out a steadying breath. “you’ll be hanging out with pap tomorrow and i wanted to tell you that i don’t care who you are; if you hurt him, i will hurt you tenfold. i would do anything for him.”

“Even ruin his chances of getting a relationship with somebody?”

“even that.” Sans’s voice practically challenged you to make him prove himself. The hollow eye sockets were probably meant to scare you away from the thought though - not that his little trick actually scared you.

Instead of giving him the reaction he was probably expecting, you gave his hand another squeeze as you smiled softly at him. “Thanks for the warning, but you just wasted breath. I have no will to harm anyone except those who have greatly wronged me, but even then I’d want them to be brought to proper justice - though if I  get in a few shots of my own, that’s all the better.” The look Sans gave you - eye sockets slightly wider than normal and mouth faintly parted - made your soul beat with pride. It looked like you’d gained his trust and for some reason that felt like a big accomplishment. For a celebration of that, you gave him a goofy grin before dragging him across the bed to pull him into some cuddles. The most he reacted at first was to let out this uncharacteristically high squeak of surprise. He was stiff in your arms as you curled around him, but he relaxed while devolving into chuckles. He let slip a joke and you joined the laughter with giggles.

 

Your day with Papyrus was fun like you hadn’t had since you were little. Somehow the two of you had roped Sans into your shenanigans as well. He had been deemed the feral monster that had kidnapped you while Papyrus was the valiant knight who was to save you. Sans had taken you out to one of the gazebos in the castle gardens. Some great guarding he was doing though, having fallen asleep on one of the benches some time ago.

The sun had slowly been crawling along its path and you had yet to see Papyrus. You’d caught a fleeting glance of Red, and later you’d seen Razz and Hickory walking along - Hickory a step behind his brother. You’d greeted the two, but before you could ask if they’d seen Papyrus, Razz had brushed you off and the two were leaving again.

When Papyrus did show up, you quietly thanked you hero so as to not wake the sleeping beast. He seemed a little disheartened by Sans’s nap, so you took him to one of the fountains after obtaining a bucket from the garders who were out. You companion seemed confused of your intentions and so you explained you plan to him with a playful grin. He seemed hesitant, but agreed to help - a little water never hurt anyone with a good soul after all.

Sans woke up sputtering after being drenched in the bucket full of cool water. As he flailed, you giggled while Papyrus sweeped you into his arms. The bucket clanged against the ground which seemed to break Sans from his blind flailing. He stared up at the two of you with a bewildered expression. You waved at him as Papyrus laughed and took of running across the gardens.

 

The sky rumbling was the worst. You had been looking for Edge and had just found out that he wasn’t in his room when you’d heard the first rumble. Blind panic had frozen you stiff until the second roar. You’d scrambled into the room and had managed to hide between a couch and a wall before the next one hit. So now you sat there, trembling with one hand tightly gripping your necklace. You had no idea how long you’d been in the room, but you didn’t have it in you to care.

The door opened and closed with a bit more force than the staff would normally use. a frustrated sigh barely reached you as another rumble took your attention. Your free hand came up to your face to wipe at the wet mess it had become. The stranger in the room was the least of your concerns - you were more concerned about the building collapsing every time a rumble resounded around you. You lungs felt like they were burning and you gasped for air. With the sounds of the following gasps filling your ears, and your eyes watering up again, you were defenceless against the stranger if it turned out they were an assailant. In your head you couldn’t find it in yourself to care though.

Hands grasped you and dragged you from your hiding spot. A pathetic sounding whimper left you, but that’s the only sound you could make given your state. The grip on you softened as the stranger must have recognized you, but all you saw was a blur of colours. Not like any colour made much sense at the moment. You closed your eyes as you were placed on something soft and the hands came up to wipe the wetness from your face. The feeling was rough against your face. You tried to pull back away from the feeling, but you were help firm by your face. You whined, but the rough feeling was unrelenting.

After you had calmed down, you’d found out that it was Edge who’d been the one to do all that. Which made sense in a way, it was his room after all. He’d demanded to know if you’d been there all day. It was the least you could do to give him a nod while pulling your knees to your chest with a whine at another sound from the sky. He had shifted to be much gentler after that and you didn’t have it in you to question that at the moment.

“Sorry,” you sniffled as you brought your free hand up to your face again. “I always have a hard time with loud rumbling because of a building collapsing around me when I was younger. We don’t know what happened to cause the collapse, but the noise remind me of that moment.” You couldn’t look at Edge as you rubbed the thumb of the hand on your necklace over the warm metal.

“What’s that necklace you wear?” His question startled you, though you were grateful for the quieter tone he was using.

Your grip on your necklace tightened for a moment before you sighed and let it go. “It’s an angel wing. Somebody very important gave it to me and it has become a comfort item for me. I don’t know what I’d do without it as just having it has helped me with a lot of panic attacks. I still freak out, but I don’t think it’s as bad as it would be without it.” With both hands in your lap, you began to fiddle with your dress. The rumbling had ceased, but your nerves will still hakey. Edge reached over and gently grabbed your hands. You were grateful for the gesture, but guilt about not spending the day with him began to bubble up. He assured you that he could convince his brother to let him join the two of you the next day - though the way he worded it made it seem like he was doing you a favour and that wasn’t helping your gut feeling about that meeting.

 

You could feel his stare on your back and it was driving you crazy. Instead of approaching you, Red had been watching you when your back was turned, and vanishing whenever you turned in his direction for any reason. Closing your eyes, you took a calming breath. Getting angry wasn’t going to help anything. He would come to you when he was ready. A smirk tugged at your mouth, he was just like an avoidant animal.

“whatcha think bout there?” The smirk vanished quickly at the voice. That grammar was awful. It didn’t help that it felt like Red - it had to be him because that stare was gone and replaced with this - was slowly leaning closer to you with every passing moment. At this rate, he’d be on you at any moment.

You took a purposeful step away from him and did your best to make yourself look bigger than you were. “First off, don’t touch me. Please. Second off, it’s none of your business.” You rounded on him in time to see his surprised face before he pulled it back under control. “And lastly, it’s rude to stare at people. Even if their back is turned.” He took half a step back and suddenly looked as if he was unsure of what he thought of you anymore. Un relaiation to his earlier action in the most passive aggressive way you could think of, you gave him a big, innocent smile as if you hadn’t said anything in that snappy and irritated tone. Honestly, it wasn’t like you to be like that, but something had you feeling like you needed to be defensive around him. Like he was going to try something if you didn’t keep your guard up.

Red looked like he wanted to say something, but Edge came over at that moment so he just pulled back into himself and gave you a sharp glare. You kept your innocent facade up as you chatted with Edge and did your best to try and include Red still. It seemed Red was pretty reserved with Edge around, and you weren’t sure how to feel about that - this was the day you were supposed to be using to get to know Red after all.

The day continued to go pretty well until you had to change. You’d gotten covered in dirt while out in the gardens with the brothers. Even then, it wasn’t bad until you were almost done changing. All you needed was your necklace and you were set to join the brothers. There was just one problem with that - your necklace was missing. It wasn’t misplaced - you’d never misplace it - so you weren’t sure what happened to it. You were practically tearing the room apart looking for it. Panic was clawing at your soul, but you kept shoving it off so that you could focus on finding your necklace. Each time it came back, it was getting harder and harder to get rid of though. It was slowly sinking its claws in deeper with every visit. This was maddening and you were losing yourself to the panic without you comfort object to help keep it away. It didn’t help that you kept reaching up to grab your necklace for reassurance only to not have it there.

“WHAT IS TAKING SO LONG?!” Edge bellowed as he was likely the one who was also pounding on the door. You vaguely remember yelling something, but your mind was quickly being gripped by panic and it was only growing worse. Your chest was heaving and the sounds of your breathing were quickly filling your ears and making it harder to hear. You don’t entirely remember how the rest of that day went. Edge gave you his scarf, that much was apparent by the fact that you woke up with it still around your neck the next morning, but other than that you weren’t really sure what all happened. You remember somebody holding you like a small child for a while, people talking, and you think you hit somebody, but details were all a blur.

 

Spending time with Razz and Hickory was a chore. They treated you as less than them and you ended up spending all of one’s day with both. So, on the second day, you got kind of fed up with being treated like you didn’t really matter and that Razz was the best thing in existence. In fact, he was ranting and boasting about his greatness when an idea popped into your head.

“Fight me.” It made sense given that they came from a kingdom where those who were stronger were of better standing than those weaker. They thought you were weak - which you most definitely not - and so fighting either both or one of them would prove that you were worthy of being treated as more of an equal than basically trash.

Your words got the very satisfying reaction of causing Hickory to jump and Razz to sputter over his words and have to stop his rant. “EXCUSE ME? I DON’T BELIEVE I HEARD YOU CORRECTLY.” He seemed well and truly mystified.

You simply grinned at the pair. “Well, you look like you’d make good opponents and I want to be able to prove myself to the two of you…” Slowly, you were beginning to second guess yourself, but something told you that you could do it.

“FINE,” Razz replied shortly. He had this look about him as if he expected you to fail quickly and for you to then believe he was truly the strongest and best. Seems he was completely misjudging you.

So, as you lead the pair towards the training grounds for the guards, the rules were negotiated. It was to be a one on one duel between you and Razz with Hickory using his magic to set a boundary for the two of you to fight in. Anything and everything in that area would be allowed to be used in the duel any way either of you fighters saw fit. The match would end when either of you had the other pinned down for a count of 10. Razz also agreed to give you some time to change into something more suited to fighting as a long dress would just get in the way.

When the two of you were facing each other inside the arena of bones - you having changed into a tunic with a belt around your waist and a pair of pants like the ones the guards wore for training - Razz eyes you from his ready stance. He was looking at your empty arms. You’d grabbed no weapon nor shield to aid you despite the fact that you both knew he had magic he could use for both and he seemed unsure of what to make of that. He didn’t get time to dwell on it thought as the guard in charge of training, who had agreed to monitor the fight to make sure it was a clean fight and that the counting of being down would be fair, called out for the match to begin.

Instantly, bones appeared in the air behind him and then shot them towards you. You dodged with ease from your many practise sessions with your brothers and the guards. Razz looked caught off guard by your avoidance of all the attacks, so you sent him a playful wink to tease him. He was going easy on you and you wanted a challenge. The teasing seemed to be doing its job as his face flushed with indignation and more attacks came at you. These were harder to dodge, but you had managed to get through most before one went flying straight at your head. On instinct, your hands shot up and a shield formed in the air right in front of them, just large enough to block the bone. Best not to waste energy. Razz’s stunned face after you deflected his attack was definitely worth not mentioning your ‘special skills’ until now. The battle after that was a lot more entertaining. Razz was putting more effort into trying to attack you as the two of you were both running around, and you spent most of your time dodging and shielding, though you had grabbed a couple of his attacks and redirected them back at him.

In the end it was close, but Razz just managed to beat you. Both of you were covered in dirt and small injuries. Despite that, you were laughing while heaving for breath. You’d gone on for a while and you were pretty sure Razz only beat you because you were tiring and he looked like he could still take on the world and have energy to spare. He pulled you up to your feet and shook your hand while telling you that you fought well. Then he surprised you by apologizing about underestimating you. You’d waved it off, after all, you were a princess and most princesses didn’t learn to fight. You just happened to have to brothers who wanted you to join them and a father who didn’t want you defenseless.

 

Your gaze slid over to Stretch again. He wasn’t hidden, you’d give him that much, but it was a little strange to feel like he was a chaperone for you and Blue. Perhaps he wanted to give you the same warning about hurting Blue as Sans had given you about hurting Papyrus, but he really should know not to worry. Hadn’t these skeletons all hung out together and talked while not hanging around you? You’d think that with the way the two are alike, Sans would have mentioned it to Stretch, but apparently not. At least it didn’t feel like he was breathing down your neck, more like he was just keeping an eye out for the two of you just in case something happened. It was actually pretty calm.

“MAIDEN!” You turned your attention back to Blue, who was pouting in your direction. “YOU WERE IGNORING ME.”

“Sorry Blue, just got distracted by my thoughts is all.” You turned your whole body to face him so that you would stop getting distracted by Stretch.

Blue perked up at your apology. “APOLOGY ACCEPTED! THOUGHTS CAN BE VERY DISTRACTING AFTER ALL!” He then hesitated as if he wanted to say more.

“Got your own distracting thoughts, Blue?” Whatever he was thinking about was clearly bothering him to some degree.

“YES ACTUALLY…” Blue cleared his throat. “Maiden… Nobody has told us your name. You’ve only been referred to by your title.” He fidgeted a little was if scared his words would upset you.

“Oh…” You blinked. “Oh! Well, I suppose it’s my fault for assuming you already knew my name and not taking the time to properly introduce myself.” A laugh left you and you gave him a look to reassure him that you were fine with him asking. “My name is-”

Shouting came from the castle as the ground beneath you should. Your eyes widened in surprise as you pinwheeled your arms due to losing your balance. “PRINCESS!” Blue startled and made a move to grab for you, but you fell against a sturdy body and arms were wrapping around you quickly to make sure you didn’t slide away. Your gaze hopped up to the person who had caught you only to see Stretch there.

He gave you a strained smile. “careful there.”

“Thank you, but I wish to know what is going on in the castle.” The ground had thankfully stopped shaking, but a few structures around the gardens had fallen over in the shaking. You eyes shot open as a realization took over you. “My father’s still in there!” You took off towards the castle without checking to see if the other two were following.

You soul was hammering hard in your chest with worry, and fear soon added to that as you watched parts of the castle crumbling as you ran through the halls towards where you knew your father was. You kept summoning shields to protect yourself from stray bits of debris as you hopped you wouldn’t find the remains of your father when you got to him. It was getting harder to breathe with the dust in the air alongside your running, but it didn’t matter. Your father was in danger. You needed to get to him. The kingdom still needed him.  _ You  _ still needed him. Was that selfish? You didn’t care.

You froze in horror in the demolished doorway of the room when you heard the maniacal laughter that skipped about in pitch and even its place in the laugh. The Destroyer was sitting down, looking quite relaxed as if he was waiting for you to come. Given the way his smile grew when he saw you, that’s exactly what he wanted. However what had you soul beating wildly was the sight of your father, strung up and hanging by the ceiling. The Destroyers strings were tied around his soul and your father was limp and barely conscious.

“LooOks LIke YoU wEre wrONg Old MAn.” The Destroyer taunted while sounding completely insane. Had your father thought you would run for safety? You could never abandon him! “gUEsS i HAvE nO uSE fOr YouU anYmoRe.” No. No, nonono! Time felt like it was going in slow motion as the strings tore your father’s soul to pieces in front of you, the shards drifting to the floor like snow before vanishing. The clang of his crown hitting the ground seemed to ring so loudly in your ears as all you could do was stare in abject horror while tears welled up in your eyes. Your father had just died and it was your fault. If you had run away, would he have been kept alive? No, you didn’t know this was going to happen. You had thought your father simply needed to be rescued from a collapsing castle. You hadn’t known. Yet here you were, your father was dead and the Destroyer was slowly stalking towards you with a terrifying clarity about him.

“Papa…” Your voice cracked and you barely forced out the word.

The Destroyer’s grin grew wider. “wHA-WHat’S wROng,  _ GliTCH? _ yOU KnoW yoU DEserVe thIs. if IT wERen’T fOR yOu, theN NoNE of THis wOuLD be HeRE.” You could tell he was taunting you and trying to make you easier to kill or manipulate, but he was telling the truth. Your fault. Everything was your fault. You didn’t deserve to get the happily ever after your father had wanted for you. A silent apology crossed your mind as you closed your eyes. You didn’t want to see what was coming next.

You screamed as strings tore through your body and soul.

 

You sat up with a start in your bed, mute with terror and one hand coming up to clutch at your chest to stop the frantic beating in your soul as your chest heaved for air your burning lungs were crying out for. What a strange dream turned nightmare you’d just had. You hadn’t dreamed of your current master yet, and then this had happened.

Something shifted in the corner of your vision and you quickly turned to face the possible danger. Your soul stopped at the sight of a figure that looked to be made of tar or some other dark, viscous liquid. One visible eye stared back at you and the mouth pulled into a sadistic grin. You knew exactly who this was. You knew you shouldn’t - you’d never actually met him - but here you were with the ruler of darkness in your room. In a way it made sense, you were a miserable creature, so of course he’d track you down eventually. Was he here to torture you so that your pain could fuel him more before dragging you away to continue that suffering forever?

“Seems my brother is good for something after all. He meddled and lead me right to something interesting.” You could feel the negative aura filling the air. It was a heavy pressure on your chest and you felt so weak against it. It made you feel so small and like you were going to drown. Perhaps it was the reason the words ‘your fault’ were echoing around your head.

The corrupted guardian walked slowly towards you. “Relax,” he growled out when you tried to move away from him by skittering across the bed. “I’m not going to do anything to you. Yet, at least. Your negative emotions are so delicious, and besides, it’s going to be a lot more interesting watching you fumble around pretending like you’re something you’re not. For now though, let’s have you forget this happened. Don’t want you acting out of line when there are so many more interesting things you could do.” You didn’t understand what he was talking about. You didn’t get a chance to either. The tentacles from his back lunged at you, one plunging into your chest - though it didn’t feel like anything until it reached your soul. Just as you were about to cry out at the awful feeling, another tentacle shoved itself down your throat. “Come now. Don’t want the others to hear you, now do we?” That sadistic smile stretched wider. You couldn’t even fight back as the other tentacles pushed down on your body to keep you from struggling.

“Don’t worry, you’ll think of it like a bad dream if you even remember. You’re just never waking up from this nightmare.~”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to write an April Fools Day chapter and yet I still somehow managed to mess that up by missing April Fools Day. Anyway, here it is. It's long, so hopefully that makes up for the wrong date? Because I got so busy, I don't know if I will be able to get up my usual update, but hopefully I'll still make it. At least there's something here if I do miss it. Anyway, hope everyone had a good Easter. I was busy with cousins all day which is why this is being uploaded the day after April Fools Day. Anyway, hope you all had fun since I last updated, and hope you all had fun with this chapter.
> 
> ...Is it sad that this is my longest chapter in this story so far...?


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next day... The next day...

The next morning you awoke to pounding on the door, jarring you into consciousness. The most startling of that is that you hadn’t awoken to the change in light, nor the sound of anyone drawing near the room. You’d been blind to the world and they could have done anything to you if it weren’t for that pounding having woken you up. On the bright side, you felt well rested for the first time in what felt like forever and you were actually properly comfortable. You’d ended up curling into a small ball around the pillow as you were fully hidden from the rest of the room. Maybe if you stayed hidden, they wouldn’t come for you. As childish of a thought that way, you couldn’t help but wish that that would be the case. Maybe if you stayed here long enough, it’d be revealed this was all just some crazy dream or elaborate prank, but you doubted anything that had happened while you were with your old master would have happened if either of those were the case. Sighing, you snuggled your face into the pillow, wishing all these problems would go away.

Seemed like that wouldn’t work, especially not with the problem that lay outside your door. That much was made clear after another round of pounding on the poor wood echoed in your still almost empty room that was just as devoid of any personal touches as before. You had no reason to personalize it despite the some of the skeletons suggesting that you point out things you like to them at any time that you could use to make the room more your own. It wasn’t really your room though, it was just a room in the skeleton’s house that had been given to you because you were their pet. It could easily be taken away. That and having a room of your own felt so stranger. You were used to sharing or not having a proper room, so this place felt hollow and empty, why not let it look the part too. Your brother had been the one to decorate most of your shared room anyway.

As your more aware mind took in the room after you pushed out from under the blankets just enough to see out, you noticed that the food was still there. Either they really wanted you to eat it, or they hadn’t returned. It was impossible to guess though seeing as you were unaware to if they had teleported in during the night. Maybe if they had they had forgotten about the plate if it wasn’t drugged? You still didn’t want to take your chances with it and it seems your stomach had forgotten about the idea of eating for now. Though you needed to stop looking at it if you had any hope of keeping things that way, so your gaze turned to your door as another round of somebody pounding on the door picked up again. You blinked as you registered the dresser. You remember noticing it last night, but not really thinking much of it. Had you even had a dresser in your room before there was one in front of the door though? You remember blowing it off as being yours, but you were pretty sure there hadn’t been one in the room. So where in the world did it come from? You must have been really out of it last night if you completely missed all of this.

Loud cursing broke your confused thought as you turned your attention to the door. That sounded like Edge. “I DON’T CARE. JUST TELEPORT IN AND OPEN THE DOOR FOR ME.” Who was he talking to? Well, three of the skeletons could be ruled out just by the fact that he said teleportation, or at least, as far you were aware that was the case. It fit the pattern you’d seen from them so far. Of course you wouldn’t be surprised if the others could teleport as well and just chose not to. Probably disregarded it as the lazy way to get around knowing what you did.

Moments later, Red appeared by your closet. Figures that that was who Edge was talking to. He didn’t even look in your direction as a befuddled expression sat on his face while he stared at the dresser. “the fuck?” he breathed out, barely audible. It was pretty obvious he hadn’t been the one to bring you the food the night before as he would have had to see the dresser if he had been in here before, no matter how dark it was. His steps prowled closer to the blockade. There was a moment after he got up to it that he just stood there and stared at it. A light scraping noise filled the air as he rubbed the back of his skull before he shrugged and put a hand on the dresser. In a flash both were gone. You could only assume that he had taken the dresser to go find where it belongs and put it back. Most likely it was from another room in the house, so it shouldn’t take him long to figure that out. If it didn’t belong to any of the rooms in this house then you were even more perplexed on how it got there.

The noise of the door opening refocused your attention on more pressing manners. Edge slowly pushed it open and stepped into the room. His gaze swept around before landing on your lump in the middle of the bed, and then sliding down to the full plate still on the floor. His sharp teeth fell into a scowl. Your soul froze as he leveled narrowed eyes up at where you were on you bed. A small squeak escaping you as you pulled the blanket back over you completely. Your eyes squeezing shut as tears threatened to bubble up. That gaze must mean that he was going to punish you. You were right no matter how much you wanted to be wrong. Despite the fact that you were so used to acting as if anything your old master had done to you didn’t bother you, it had been a while and you were out of practise. You were shaking and breathing became difficult as you thought of all the ways this could play out. The poor pillow was in a death grip as you tried to stave off the panic that was already starting to flutter in your soul. Your chest burned and you quietly wondered why the thought of punishment from one of the skeletons bothered you so much. A quiet voice in the back of your mind had your soul still and mind go blank - perhaps your body froze too, but you couldn’t tell as you were too deep in your thoughts at this point. It bothered you because you felt kind of safe around them, you had feeble bonds of trust and love for their endearing personalities starting to build up within you. Especially after that time where it sounded like the sky could be falling, you’d come to trust Edge more and grow a bit more comfortable around him. You shared a fear of that sound and a part of you had wished that perhaps that would be enough to at least start to understand one another. Perhaps you were too much of an optimist even after the life had begun to punish you for your mistakes. Really, you should have seen this coming sooner, you didn’t deserve happiness after the stupid things you’d done.

A strangled noise caught in your throat when the blankets were thrown off of you and you were picked up without time to react. Edge had grabbed you by the back of your shirt at the collar, effectively cutting off your air supply. While part of you wanted to lash out and fight for air, the rest of you ended up in control and caused you to go limp - only making the air situation worse at the moment. Even if it was worse for the moment, perhaps not reacting would get him to put you down faster and leave you alone because you weren’t fun to mess with and you couldn’t seem to be broken. Wheezing breaths and a heaving chest weren’t helping you with that at the moment though. He’d probably find that reaction enough of a reach to drag this out and make it worse. Whatever happened, you just hoped it was quick. Maybe you’d pass out before the bad stuff happened and stayed unconscious through it all. That would be nice, though it was little more than a hope as you knew that if you passed out then he’d likely just prepare you for your punishment and wait for you to wake up before doing anything to you.

You closed your eyes as you waited for something to happen, but they fluttered open in surprise while your chest heaved to take in air as Edge put you down on the bed. You were still dazed and desperately pulling in oxygen when something was placed around your neck. You blinked dumbly as you raised a hand to touch it. There was definitely fabric there. Looking up at where Edge was moving to the closet, you noticed the lack of red around his own neck. It took a few moments for the realization to register - you blamed the lack of air - and you weren’t sure what to think afterwards. He’d given you his scarf, and was leaving you alone instead of punishing you. Had you done something wrong? Something right? Your head was spinning with questions - or was that the air rich blood returning to your head? You weren’t quite sure how human biology worked too much, but it’d never been something that interested you nor had too much information about either. Your father had collected the books simply in the event of health problems so he could have reference of an idea of what to do. It was hard to ever tell how accurate the information in those books were though, and no cutting to double check was ever something anyone had considered since that could definitely be dangerous to try.

Still though, your thoughts were getting off track and this was all weird. Not wanting to anger the tall and pointy skeleton though, you stayed still on the bed. Burying your face into the scarf, you watched him pick up your black jacket, a red shirt with white trim, and black slacks. He said nothing as he walked back to you and placed them on the bed next to you, a new pair of socks also in tow. Then he glanced over your figure once before sighing. “Change into these before coming out.” Just like that he was turning and walking out of the room. “Have my scarf folded and in your hands when you come out. I expect it to be done well too. Don’t think I won’t check.” He didn’t even look over his shoulder while speaking before he was out the door. You blinked at the odd behaviour. Odd barely covered what that had felt like, but it would have to be enough for now. You had orders and you were going to follow them. Maybe if you were a good pet, you’d get no punishment at all, though that was just a dream that you doubted would ever come true. Good pets were punished when they did wrong so that they could learn to be better for the future. Good pets didn’t try to bite their masters while they were given their punishment either. You’d learned that biting part pretty quickly after getting hit so hard in the head you were put into a daze so you had no resistance against your old master. Though that had been near the beginning when you still fought back.

Whatever was to happen, you didn’t want to keep Edge waiting. That could only end badly as far as you were aware. So you hopped off the bed to get ready. The scarf was taken off with a hint of reverence as you took great care with it while folding it. While Edge might not care if it has a couple wrinkles here or there, you weren’t risking it. You had to be the best pet you could be, because good pets didn’t get punished as often as bad pets. You used to be a bad pet, but you were good now. You were good now and you didn’t need to be punished as much or as often.

Clothes on, you quietly padded over to the door, unsure of what awaited you on the other side. Edge’s scarf was clutched tightly to your chest with one arm as the other reached with small shivers to grab the door knob. Just because you knew you deserved whatever punishment that awaited you, doesn’t mean you wanted it. However you had no choice, you were nothing and your masters held all the power. So you allowed yourself just a moment to take a steadying breath before opening the door.

Edge was leaning against the wall across the hallway with both arms crossed. Your head fell down so you stared at his feet to help you avoid staring at his neck. It was strange to see him without his scarf. No words filled the air as you held out the folded scarf, trying to keep yourself from shaking. Shaking wasn’t going to help you now. It was just a sigh of weakness. Weakness meant your old master found more entertainment in messing with you and you didn’t know if your new masters would be the same. Best to give them as little to work off of as possible anyway. Though just being the good pet you should be was still top priority. Not like that was going to help much now if you were being punished, but listening was still a good idea. If you listened then maybe the punishment wouldn’t be long. Wishful thinking, but it was things like that which could get you through. Maybe you could even convince yourself that you didn’t keep track of time properly while hurt and so it was shorter than it actually was. Your treacherous stomach let out a whine for food and you clenched your teeth to try and help you avoid reacting to the noise otherwise. Maybe Edge hadn’t heard it. You didn’t want to risk losing food completely beyond the bare minimum to keep you alive as a punishment. Too bad it looked like Edge had heard it with the look he was giving you when you glanced up. Your gaze quickly fell again. It was all you could do to not shrink and curl into yourself under that gaze.

With a sigh, Edge turned and began to walk down the hallway. You followed without objection. He lead you up the stairs and into the kitchen. He made you sit on one of the bar stools. Out of the corner of your eyes, you watched him pull out his phone and begin to tap away at it. Maybe he was getting the others to come for them to participate in your punishment. It would make sense if all your masters would be there for your first punishment so that they could see how you reacted to it and what worked and what didn’t. Then they could all find the ways they personally enjoyed punished you. Though thinking of Papyrus or Blue punishing you was a strange idea. Maybe their brothers would keep them from joining. Though why does it matter if they see a pathetic human getting the punishment she deserves? It was your fault that you were even getting that punishment. Your eyes began to burn a little, but you fought away the tears. You didn’t deserve a pity party. You didn’t deserve to get to cry. The hollow ache in your chest remained, but you ignored it. You’d brought this upon yourself after all.

After Edge placed down his phone, he turned around to start making breakfast. You occasionally glanced up at him, but you did your best to keep your gaze on the counter on the ground in front of you. You didn’t even turn to see who walked into the kitchen as Edge clattered around with some pans. Not like you really needed to as Blue happily greeted Edge before he seemed to notice that you were even there. “HUMAN! YOU’RE OKAY! I WAS SO WORRIED AFTER I SAW YOU RUNNING DOWN THE STAIRS YESTERDAY AND FOUND YOUR DOOR CLOSED WHEN I WENT DOWN TO CHECK ON YOU. I DIDN’T WANT TO ENTER BECAUSE I WANTED TO RESPECT YOUR PRIVACY, BUT YOUR SOUL WAS CRYING OUT IN SO MUCH ANGUISH THAT I TRIED TO GO IN ANYWAY, BUT THE DOOR WAS BLOCKED AND I’M SO GLAD THAT YOU LOOK TO BE PHYSICALLY OKAY!! I was so scared that you were doing something bad to yourself...” Blue had his arms wrapped around you and you could feel some wetness from where he had buried his face into your back. It felt like your soul was tearing a piece of itself off at the genuine sadness that Blue spoke with - a pain you knew better than you’d like to admit, though thankfully your soul was currently in one piece. “I WANTED TO MAKE SOMETHING FOR YOU, BUT RAZZ INSISTED HE COOKED AND THAT HICKORY BROUGHT THE FOOD INTO YOUR ROOM. I THINK HICKORY TOLD RAZZ ABOUT WHAT WAS GOING ON IN YOUR ROOM, BUT THEY WOULDN’T TELL ANYBODY ELSE AND THEY LOOKED KIND OF UPSET.” You shrunk down and Blue must have noticed because he was quickly shaking his hands in front of him. “NOT AT YOU! THEY SEEMED TO BE UPSET ABOUT THE SITUATION IN GENERAL. THEY EVEN MADE SURE TO TELL US TO GIVE YOU YOUR SPACE.” You were kind of glad for that space you were granted - maybe Hickory had put the dresser in your room? Honestly, you weren’t entirely sure how you would have reacted to one of the skeletons coming into your room last night. While you were pretty sure you would probably have just rolled yourself over and made yourself open to them, you’re not sure how that would have gone given Hickory’s reaction last time you did anything similar.

Blue continued to fuss over you and you almost missed Red popping into the room. He glanced your direction before quickly looking away and moving over to talk to Edge as he cooked. With the loud voice right next to you, you couldn’t hope to eavesdrop, but that was probably a good thing considered what had happened yesterday when you had decided to do such a thing. Red was shifting around nervously the whole conversation and kept sending occasional glances at you. Even when you weren’t looking, you could feel it. For some reason it was grating on your nerves, but that could also be that you were feeling more defensive due to waiting for that punishment that was taking a while to happen. The waiting for what they were going to do was the real torture to you. What you were thinking of punishments were probably much worse than they’d start off with… maybe. You couldn’t be sure. You could  _ never _ be sure until it happened. Uncertainty was definitely a cruel mistress.

You stiffened when you glanced up and saw a collar in Red’s grip that wasn’t the one from around his neck. Neither him nor Edge were even looking at you yet and it could be a new collar for Red for all you really knew. It was more likely that it was for you and it would be part of whatever punishment were getting because you recognized the small device at where it attached together that indicated it was only able to be taken off by a being with magic. A special type of collars meant for humans because they were the most capable pet at being able to remove such a thing. It would be pretty pointless to put one of those on a monster. Of course, the collar wouldn’t work on a human with magic, but from what you’d gathered, all magic wielding humans were killed upon discovery of their powers. So it wasn’t really a problem for monsters to worry about humans taking off their collars if they put one of these on them.

Blue had gone silent while you were lost in vaguely panicked thoughts as he looked over you worriedly. His gaze then turned to follow yours and he grew an upset frown. It was so weird to see him frowning and you mind began to race will all the reasons why he could look like that. Him losing a façade and getting ready to punish you now that he saw that the collar was out being just one of those ideas causing you distress. The way his eye lights actually dimmed was a little distressing as well. You hadn’t thought they could get like that with how much energy he always seemed to have bouncing him around. Luckily those descending thoughts were quickly killed. “WHAT’S THAT FOR?” Perhaps he wasn’t in on your punishment then, but you hoped he didn’t get in trouble for trying to help you.

Both Edge and Red startled at Blue’s question. Red’s sockets went empty, and Edge seemed stiff. It was a little strange to see them so caught off guard. Edge was the one to respond as he recovered first. “IT IS FOR THE HUMAN.” Your soul stopped at his words. Panic began to haze your vision so that it was tunnelled, fuzzy and dark around the edges. You were right. They were putting it on you for your punishment. You were distantly aware of your breathing becoming quick and shallow and you went stiff, but your mind was racing to fast to care.

You were shaken from panic and into numb shock as Blue suddenly grabbed you in a hug. “NO! THE HUMAN IS A FRIEND! SHE DOESN’T NEED A COLLAR BECAUSE YOU DON’T COLLAR FRIENDS.” He paused before quickly adding to his words. “UNLESS THEY WANT TO BE COLLARED AND OUR HUMAN DOESN’T SEEM LIKE SHE WANTS TO WEAR THAT!” A gentle, reassuring pulse came from next to you and you could only register in your numb state that it came from Blue. Was he… trying to reassure you with his magic? It wasn’t a foreign feeling, but one you hadn’t expected to ever feel it in this place.

“YOU DON’T HAVE TO GET SO DEFENSIVE. IT’S BETTER THAT SHE WEARS THIS WHILE WE’RE OUT OF THE HOUSE TODAY. SHE CAN’T STAY HOME FOREVER AFTER ALL. I’VE READ IT ISN’T GOOD FOR HUMANS TO STAY COOPED UP ALL THE TIME.” At this point your mind was blank. You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. Maybe this was him taking you somewhere else to get punished so that Blue wasn’t around for it? They  _ were _ going to punish you, right? You were bad, and bad pets got punished.

Blue kept his arms around you, but his grip loosened somewhat. “OH… WELL THEN ISN’T THERE A BETTER WAY TO MAKE SURE SHE’S IDENTIFIED AS NOT A WILD HUMAN THEN?”

“NOT UNTIL WE’RE CERTAIN THAT SHE WON’T RUN FROM US OR TRY TO REMOVE HER COLLAR. THIS ONE IS DESIGNED SO THAT ONLY MONSTERS CAN PUT IT ON OR TAKE IT OFF. IT WILL KEEP HER SAFE.”

“WELL… IF IT’LL KEEP HER SAFE…” Blue reluctantly let you go with a sigh. “PLEASE DON’T LET HER GET HURT.”

Edge was silent for a moment before turning his gaze to you. He made eye contact and you could see a hint of that softer side of him from the day the sky rumbled. “I PROMISE.” The shock on Red’s face was enough to let you know that Edge wasn’t the kind to easily make promises. If he didn’t easily make promises, then it was likely that he didn’t break them either. A sense of calm began to wash over your soul, though the panic and fear still clung to you. Edge would keep you safe. You were okay with him.

 

The collar was definitely not comfortable, but having it visible was even worse. Luckily the weather was cold and grey, so you got away with wearing a scarf over it. Your long black coat kept you warm in the miserable weather even as wind made it a little difficult to walk. You’d never dealt with such strong winds before. Edge had wanted to use a leash on you as well, but you’d got deathly still with panic and Blue stood firm in denying Edge that. Turns out Blue could be quite stubborn and kind of scary when he wanted to be. It was kind of amazing to watch while totally freaked out of your mind. Actually, if you hadn’t been freaked out, you probably would have been wondering how in the world he managed to pull that off so easily, especially against Edge. It hadn’t taken much convincing from him at all. You weren’t too sure what went down, the two had left the room together after Blue had called you a maiden - why he chose that to refer to you, you’ll never know - and you’d been left with Red, who’d been angsty and uncomfortable looking the whole time. He probably still wasn’t over that time you flipped him for all you knew. As long as it kept him off your back about anything like that ever again, you’d be fine if he stayed hung up on that forever.

So with you geared up to face the cold, Edge lead you down the sidewalk in black jeans, a red sort of mahogany shirt which contrasted the brighter crimson of his boots, gloves, and scarf, and a black leather jacket with small silver coloured studs on the shoulders. It fit him wonderfully as far as you knew the spiky exterior he liked to keep up. He held a large umbrella up over your heads to keep the ‘light drizzle,’ as you’d heard them refer to it as, off of your heads and you stayed just a step behind him to stay under its protection. No words were shared between the two of you beyond a few commands from Edge, and you kept your gaze on the ground just ahead of you. You didn’t want to see all the monsters everywhere with human workers and pets mixed in. You’d seen parts of monsters that had walked by you, and the whole monster in the case of a few smaller than you that got close enough for you to see them with your gaze fixed ahead as it was, but none paid you any mind. It was a lonely feeling. Nothing like being back home, where everyone in your town knew everyone and you’d all greet each other happily. Even at your father’s workplace you’d be greeted by everyone. Everyone there knew you and your brothers given the amount of time you spent in that place. It was like your second home when you were growing up.

Edge closed the umbrella and entered a store, and naturally you followed him in. He never said to stop. “You may look around. There are a few human oriented things in here and if you see anything you like or need then we will pick that up too.” You raised your gaze to meet Edge’s as he glanced at you over his shoulder. Seeming satisfied with this, Edge turned and walked towards the counter, looking around. “ALRIGHT YOU OLD COOT, I’M HERE FOR MY ORDER.” A frown tugged at your lips as you followed him, not wanting to be far from him as you knew nothing of where you were. That was no way to treat anyone unless it was done in a joking and friendly manner. Your gaze did slide from place to place to see if you could spot who he was talking to.

Now that you were looking around, the shop had a feeling about it that felt like safety and warmth to you. Not like the magic that danced around with the music and enveloped all your senses just like being around monsters did to you, but the decor of the place itself felt like something you’d been missing with your home far from reach. It was darker in here than it needed to be, though that was a mix of the dark sky not letting light stream in from the windows, and from the sky blue fairy lights that stretched back and forth across the ceiling and over shelves to give a hind of an otherworldly feel to the smaller sized shop. The place was cluttered, so it probably felt smaller than it actually was, but that added to the charm. It left your soul feeling warm and light despite everything else.

“Quit yer yammering with that loud voice. The whole block can hear you.” An old tortoise monster came hobbling out of a curtained door you could only assume went to the back of the store. You could only stare blankly as the monster laughed and put a package on the counter. “And course you’ll want to check it knowin’ you so I just left it unsealed.”

Edge moved to inspect the package. He opened it and you could tell he was using magic to go over everything inside to double check it without taking it out. As he did this, the other monster finally seemed to notice you. His one eye widened as the other remained closed - probably an old injury that healed the eye permanently shut. Edge sent a cautious glare at the other monster. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING, OLD MAN?” There was a threatening undertone to it and you felt surprisingly safe thanks to it despite the stare being pinned on you.

“By the stars! I never thought I’d see Borealis walk into my store!” He seemed truly flabbergasted and you felt a little lost.

Edge looked between you and the tortoise for a moment before he level his gaze at the monster. “I DON’T FOLLOW.”

“You have been blessed, that’s what there is to follow. Oh Great Angel who bears the title of the lights of the north whose colours you share, Aurora Borealis, please accept your humble servant Gerson’s sincerest gratitude for what you did for monsters all those years ago.” He was bowing. You didn’t understand why and you were definitely lost on what he was talking about. You knew about the Angel and the symbol of monsters having a representation of them on it, but you were pretty sure you weren’t an angel. Last you checked anyway. Not saying that divine powers didn’t sound cool, but if you had them you definitely wouldn’t be here.

“YOU’RE GOING SENILE. THIS IS THE PET OF MY HOUSEHOLD.” Edge had a curious look about him while he tried to seem closed off.

Gerson - why else would he use the name - shook his head as he looked at Edge. “I saw the angel with my own eyes on that fateful day. This human and that angel are near identical, the only differences is that this human here doesn’t have the powers of the angel visibly flowing through her.”

“BY FATEFUL DAY I CAN ONLY ASSUME YOU MEAN THE DAY MONSTERS DECIMATED THE HUMANS IN BATTLE.” Edge seemed a little off put by this conversation.

With a shake of his head, Gerson turned his attention back on you. “We only won that war because the Angel saved us.” That was enough to cause cold shock to ripple through the whole atmosphere of the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Bursts into the room with the chapter.* IT'S STILL TECHNICALLY WEDNESDAY WHERE I LIVE SO I'M GOOD!! In all honestly though, I totally thought this would be ready for last week. Then I sort of, kind of, maybe wrote myself into a corner a little bit and didn't know how to continue so I got stuck for a while. But hey, we get some vague backstory here that will be elaborated on in the next chapter and I know mostly what's going along with that so hopefully that part gets done in time for next week this time around.
> 
> In the meantime, if you have any questions, suggestions, or maybe short drabble ideas I could write in my spare time relating to this story, shoot them over to me at skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com which I'll make sure to keep on top of checking. I've answered a few questions there already and there's a short that will tie into the story eventually that's posted over there that you can check out. I also have a few ideas for some side stories that I can write for over there as well, so you can look for those hopefully soon. None of them should be necessary for your enjoyment of the story, but if you'd like some fun extras that will probably be mostly canon, then that'll all be over there too.
> 
> Anyways, that's all for this week. Have fun until I talk to you all again.~


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Angel

When you had woken up this morning, this was not what you thought your day would be like. Granted, you had thought that all roads lead to punishment, even after Edge had declared he was taking you out of the house with him. Though even in your most hopeful version of what today could have been like, you’d never have thought that you would be called the Angel and that Edge would end up leaning over a counter to grab Gerson’s shirt and glare down at him. To be fair though, you hadn’t known Gerson was around either.

All you could really do was stare in mute shock as Edge shook Gerson a little as he once again growled out his demands. “What do you mean monsters only one because of the Angel? Everything we have on that time talks about monsters having easily decimated the human attack after planning a trap on Mt. Ebott.” The way he’d dropped the loudness in his voice felt cold and threatening, very unlike the way he’d comforted you with a quiet tone, and it was sending shivers up your spine. “Why would they lie about what happened? Why would none of you old monsters from the war speak up about it if it was true? How in the world did the weaker souled humans end up nearly defeating you?”

“We were sworn to secrecy, but I will not remain quiet about the events in front of the Angel.” It was still strange to hear yourself be addressed as such. The feeling would probably be less overwhelming if you knew why you were being referred to like this instead of just hearing that you looked like the Angel. “Humans are stronger than you given them credit for, and so the lies came about to help the belief that humans are so much weaker than even the weakest monster so that there was no fear in keeping them around as close as we do. We kept humans instead of eradicating them as a mix of both a monster’s natural tendency towards compassion and as a way to honor the being that saved our souls that day.”

“But if you were losing so badly, then  _ how _ did you end up winning?” Edge pulled himself off of Gerson to cross his arms over his chest impatiently with a glare at the tortoise monster. “It doesn’t make sense! This human can’t be the Angel, and just because some being in the sky did distract the humans to give you an advantage, doesn’t mean you should have been able to win. As soon as the humans would have caught on to what you were doing they should have been able to turn the tides back in their favour if you had been losing so badly in the first place.”

Gerson shrugged, as if it didn’t bother him as much as it clearly bothered Edge. “By the Angel’s blessing I suppose. Though…” There was a thoughtful twist to the old monster’s gaze. “Sometimes I feel like I remember that battle wrong, because I swear there was just one kingdom’s army, and then the Angel appeared and then all the kingdoms of that time had their armies merged together to fight the impending threat. It doesn’t make much sense as we were obviously always together in that fight. Perhaps it’s just this old monster’s mind failing at remembering things.” He laughed that strange laugh of his and you probably would have smiled if the weight of his words didn’t strike you. One army and then many. Your eyes widened as you realized that you think you know what he’s talking about. You hadn’t had the clearest picture, but you were sure you knew what he was talking about.

 

_ “Papa, please. If this works then we can go home,” you begged. You just wanted your home back. You had your father with you once more, but if you could just get him to agree to this then perhaps you could end up with your home back and your family and friends all with you once more. While you had no idea how long it’d been since you’d last seen your brothers - time was such a weird thing here - you knew that you wanted to get back to them as soon as possible. “We just have to call it back to us. Well, you can call and I’ll amply it.” _

_ With a chuckle, your father mentioned that referring to it as calling your home back together sounded like the whole thing was sentient. However, he agreed that it was worth a shot. It was the best bet you two had on getting out of here after all. Getting out and getting to your family. You really hoped your brothers were okay where they had wound up. Excitement bubbled up in your soul at the prospect of being with them again soon. You stood with your back against your father’s chest and held your arms out and a small angle with your palms facing forward. A wave of calm flowed through you as your father rested his head on top of yours. A small downward tilt of your head and you could see his hands in the space between your body and your own hands. Knowing what was to come, you closed your eyes in preparation to focus on the part you’d play. A deep breath left you as power rolled through you, was amplified, and then sent out in hopes that it could gather the pieces of your home from everywhere and pull them back together into one. _

_ A strange sensation washed over you. Curious, you opened your eyes to see what had happened, hopeful that it meant things were working. Instead, you were greeted to a sight you weren’t expecting. A mountain was off to your side as monsters and humans were below you as you were suspended in the air. All stared up in awe and confusion. It looked like just a small army of monsters compared to the hoard of humans, all both sides could likely muster. Before your very eyes, shimmering began to happen all around the monster army. It was baffling, but as you watched, more monsters began to appear. First doubling the original army’s size, then triple, and so on. Monsters who looked sharper, monsters who looked softer, monsters of all sorts of shapes and sizes that varied, and yet stayed somewhat similar to that original army. Somebody screamed something about an angel, and suddenly the huge force of monsters were surging forward to meet the humans once more. They seemed to be winning this time, and you flinched slightly as you watched humans being cut down with such ease. Not wanting to see it anymore, you closed your eyes and pushed yourself closer to your father. Something was wrong. That wasn’t supposed to happen. You just wanted your home back, not whatever that had been. _

 

That had been what happened not long before you woke up in a park in this place. It’d been a beautiful sight to behold before your old master came along and ‘took you in’ as you’d been told was happening. You’d thought it was just some kind hospitality from a monster, only to be tricked and betrayed. Though what happened after currently wasn’t important. What had happened during that is what really mattered. Gerson had mentioned sometimes recalling it as if they stood alone before that battle you’d witnessed, which means he remembers something of what truly happened there even if he doesn’t remember it exactly. Perhaps you really could be the angel he was talking about there? Though that didn’t explain why you were in this time instead of that one. Perhaps you didn’t end up trapped in here until everything had completed itself, which hadn’t been until that point you’d woken up on the ground? A hypothesis for sure, but there was no way to be certain that that was the course of events. If you had kept your eyes open, then there was a chance you could have seen more, understood more. Yet here you were, clueless, lost, and a pet to boot. A little degrading after remembering a piece of what you used to be like, and considering how you might have been treated had you landed in the past instead of here given Gerson’s praises of you.

You blinked in surprise as a hand waved in front of your face. Following the arm your found Edge frowning down in his own form of concern. Meanwhile Gerson was leaned against the counter with a clearly worried look on his face. “Didn’t offend ya, did I, Borealis?” The tortoise monster was probably fearing divine wrath from your or something, but you decided to reply to him since he looked as if he was going to fret unless he got a reply from you. So, giving him a response, you shook your head. No, you had not been offended. Relief was clear on the old monster’s face. “Thank the stars.” He then paused to look you over. “Do you even remember what you did for monsters on that day?” It wasn’t an accusatory question, just curious. Since you were answering questions anyway, you raised a hand to shake it in a way that was to mean ‘sort of.’ You had no idea any of the details of what went down or what happened after you closed your eyes, but you had gathered enough from Gerson’s words and everything else you knew of this place in order to figure out something. Edge looked perplexed at this motion. On the other hand, Gerson lit right up as if he was a kid who’s been told Santa was coming early.

Edge huffed and shoved some money onto the counter before grabbing his package. “WE’RE LEAVING. NOW.” The commanding tone of his voice had you pulling back and looking towards the ground. He went to the door with his umbrella in hand and you trailed along as submissive as ever.

The two of you went to a nearby grocery store after leaving Gerson’s shop. It was an interesting thought, somebody as scary looking and intimidating seeming as Edge doing such normal, mundane things, but it was nice as well. You didn’t smile at the thought despite wanting to, but it did help you relax a little. For all the big bad monster sort of feel that Edge tried to give off, he was just as normal as everyone else. You got wrapped up in your thoughts over this for something to do while he shopped when a phone, alongside Edge’s quiet cursing, broke through them. Feeling a little braver than before, you glanced over at him to see him fumbling to grab his phone. More cursing came after Edge saw who was calling. Whoever it was, he definitely wasn’t pleased to hear from them.

He tried to ignore it, but they just called again after the phone went to silent. So, Edge picked up, clearly in a somewhat foul mood. “WHAT?” he demanded. He only seemed to get more irritated by whatever he was told. “IT’S ONE OF THE FEW VACATION DAYS I’VE HAD IN HOW LONG AND I STILL CAN’T GET THE WHOLE DAY OFF BECAUSE OF ONE OF YOU IDIOTS?!” There was a pause as he listened to the response. “FINE. I WILL BE THERE AS SOON AS I WALK OVER AFTER I PAY FOR WHAT I’M BUYING.” He didn’t even say goodbye before hanging up. that felt rude to you, but apparently he wasn’t getting the time off he should have off, so you supposed it was a little justified? Didn’t make you feel any better about it though. Edge didn't seem bothered as he grumbled about needing to come back later and not having time to drop you off at home first.

 

Turns out Edge worked at a guard station. The main one for the city apparently. As he lead you in, you heard some monsters in uniform talking to each other about how one was getting rotated back to their kingdom for a while soon since they’d been serving in this joint capital for a while now and it was well past due for that. Edge stopped at the front desk and seemed to get in a bit of an argument with them. It was hard to hear them over the din of the front lobby as Edge had decided to use a quieter tone. That’s probably what helped him get his way faster as it seemed to really off put the monster behind the desk.

You were lead into a back room with a couple loveseats, a small table with a couple of chairs, and a small kitchenette. Probably a break room of some kind then. “Go sit over there.” Edge gestured over at a loveseat in the corner. “I shouldn’t be more than just a few minutes if things go well and nobody is scheduled for any break anytime soon except for a couple monsters from my kingdom. I think Razz is scheduled for a break soon as well, so you can look forward to seeing him I suppose.” After he was done with explaining, Edge turned around and left the room. So you were left alone again, and on a loveseat in a station full of guards. This was probably one of the safest places you could be actually. With the collar on, they couldn’t do anything to you either. While you despised the collar, it was definitely better than the alternatives of having to deal with getting dragged around as monsters tried to identify your owner, or being mistaken as a worker who was slacking off.

All in all, the room was a peaceful place to be left with your thoughts. Though they weren’t very constructive thoughts. Ones like wondering just what was in the package Edge got earlier and why you’d been brought back here instead of made to wait out in the main lobby like most monsters probably would have done. At least there you’d be supervised. Maybe Edge thought you didn’t do enough normally to warrant supervision, so you’d be fine if you were left alone in here for a while. Hopefully other monsters who came in here would leave you alone as long as you sat off to the side and paid them no mind. The tick of a clock hanging just above the door was a nice, rhythmic noise that kept you and your thoughts company in the silence of the room. There was the occasional sound of monsters doing their thing outside of the room, but it was always muffled and never really came too close to it. This hallway probably wasn’t used much then.

The door opened roughly ten minutes after Edge had left, assuming it was three minutes before you had noticed the clock enough to check the time. You let your gaze slide down from the clock where it sat above the door to whoever was walking in. Razz you expected to see after Edge had mentioned him having a break, but Hickory following close behind hadn’t been something you thought you’d see here. Both of them paused after noticing you, Hickory only moving to make sure the door was closed. Not used to being so obviously stared at in such shock, you let yourself sink into the couch a bit as you raised a hand and gave a small wave. That jolted at least Razz out of his surprised stupor.

“MUTT! YOU STAY HERE WITH THE PET! I AM GOING TO HAVE A TALK WITH THE FRONT DESK TO SEE IF THEY KNOW WHAT SHE’S DOING IN HERE.” Hickory nodded as Razz turned and walked out the door with a slam. You flinched as it was hard enough to shake the clock on the wall. Hickory sauntered over to sit beside you and practically just melted right into the couch. A smile tugged at the corners of your mouth at how at ease he looked. You kept it under wraps as you decided he could have a nap if he wanted. The tall skeleton monster did look kind of tired. Hopefully he got enough sleep last night. Though if he was having a nap now, then you were left with just the ticking clock as your only friend once more. It was nice not to be physically alone anymore though. Even as soft snores soon joined the everpresent ticking noise that soothed you. Maybe you could have a nap now too. Didn’t seem like a horrible idea. Edge could wake you up when he wanted to go, and if he couldn’t wake you up for whatever reason, you shouldn’t be too heavy for him too cary. Skeletons might not be capable of getting muscles, but they were pretty strong considering. You wouldn’t mind being carried actually. After walking all over today, your feet were kind of sore. You just weren’t used to travelling by foot so much anymore. After all that time with your old master, then the time spent at the shelter - both seeing you stuck mostly in one room - and then not really having much need to walk around or be on your feet a lot over in the skeleton household, you really weren’t used to being on your feet so much at once. That was something you should work on. Starting tomorrow though, because you didn’t think you’d want to walk around much after you got home just so you could rest your feet. While having boots to cover your feet were nice, you also weren’t really used to footwear either, nor were these boots worn in yet. At least they weren’t worn in to somebody else’s feet. That was always the worst feeling, trying to wear shoes that fit somebody else’s feet and not yours. Wearing in the boots was as easy as wearing them a lot for a while, but walking around more was a more difficult task to figure out. Maybe you could use that obstacle course in the back and actually complete it next time you do it. If they didn’t set it up and take it down for every use. If they did, then maybe you could subtly try and convince one of the skeletons to set it up to do it with you. Blue and Papyrus were probably your best bets for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got some fun stuff planned for the next chapter, but I don't want to leave you all hanging for too long, so here's this chapter with some nice backstory elements to it. I mean, I guess the next chapter has some backstory related stuff too, but it's nothing related to the Angel so it's probably fine that they're in separate chapters anyway.
> 
> Check out [my tumblr](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/) for some fun stuff or to ask questions about the story. I posted a short over there on Ink's birthday (April 15th) that's got him in it with the main story going on in the background of it. It's just a short tidbit, but I'd like to expand upon it over there, so if you end up reading it and have got any questions about that, then go ahead and ask. Heck, if you've got questions about other Undertale multiverse characters we haven't seen in the story or one of the shorts yet, then go ahead and ask about them too. I have an idea for a few others I'm considering at least mentioning in the story at some point so I can talk about that with you over there, or you guys can end up giving me ideas for possible characters to appear in the background.
> 
> Until next time guy.~


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unwelcomed reunion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, this chapter has some abuse, implied sexual themes, implied rape, and the MC is referred to pretty harshly. So if any of that bothers you, feel free to skip to the end of this chapter for a summery since this chapter is closely related to some plot stuff. This chapter is also shorter than most of the others because I wanted to keep this all together so that readers who might be bothered by this can skip to reading the next chapter once that comes out. There will be a recap of the events in this chapter at the start of that one - that's the plan at least, so future readers shouldn't necessarily have to read the end notes of this chapter to get an idea of what's going on.

It was only a couple of minutes until noise came from the hallway once more. Sounded like a small group talking while walking together. It was hard to make out voices or words, so you were content to just let them slip into the background like all the others. Until a particularly loud laugh came to you clear enough to have your soul freeze in panic. You tried to shake it off; Maybe it was just somebody with a similar sounding voice. It was a hope, but one you didn’t want to put your faith in because if you did and it was wrong, it’d probably break you far worse than finding out that you were right in who you believed it to be. With the way they’d stopped not far from the door just now, you had a feeling they were the monsters that Edge had mentioned would have their break. Just your luck that they worked here and were coming for a break now. Life kind of sucked that way.

The door opened after a moment, so you didn’t have to wait long to see if your suspicions were true. Three dog monsters walked in, two holding hands and continuously chatting with one another as the third followed with ears perked - likely to use their chatter to help him navigate a little better as he followed where they walked, eye focused on their backs. You could feel yourself go stiff to try and keep as still as possible as your breathing became shallow to try and avoid making noise as if that’d stop them from noticing you despite the fact that they could easily sniff you out if they noticed your scent was present. Unfortunately you knew exactly who these three were, right down to the way the one trailing behind had one of his ears ripped - you’d given him that injury yourself after all. The dog couple were Nipper and Pippa, and the one following behind them was Digger. Your eyes were glued to Digger in particular, he was your old master after all. You knew you didn’t have to listen to him anymore, you had your new masters and one of them was ever right here, but you weren’t sure how hostile he’d get if you didn’t listen. It didn’t help that you were outnumbered by them, especially with Hickory sleeping. Would he force you into doing things in here? They were the only ones on break for the next while, but Hickory was present and Razz would be returning at any moment. Your soul clenched as an unbidden thought asking if Razz and Hickory would even care enough to stop anything that they dogs would do to you. While you knew they probably would given what happened after the obstacle course, a small voice inside you doubted that they actually cared.

Hickory let out a huff in his sleep and you quickly turned your head towards the ground as you knew what as to come. Expectedly, the chatter from the dogs stopped as they realized they weren’t alone in the room and turned to inspect the source of the noise, noses probably twitching to try and find the source faster. It wasn’t long until footsteps of padded feet were hurrying over to you and pulling you up out of your seat. “Human! What are you doing here?!” It was Nipper who had grabbed you given how close his voice was as he spoke. You kept quiet as your gaze remained downcast.

You were pulled from Nipper’s grasp by another set of paws that pulled you further away from the couch and closer to the centre of the room. “Oh don’t mind him! While we don’t know why you’re here, it’s so nice to see you again!” Pippa exclaimed, though you definitely didn’t share her sentiments. “You were always so fun, so I don’t get why Digger got rid of you.”

“She was too broken. Don’t see how you think that’s any fun.” It was all you could do to keep yourself from stiffening or reacting much at all to Digger’s words. Despite this, the word broken began to rattle around inside your head and hit some sore spots you did your best to ignore. An emotional reaction would prove him wrong and then they’d do something to you again. Something more than being pressed tightly against the chest of the clingy and overly affectionate dog monster that was hugging you in a way that made it a little difficult to breathe - not that you’d ever complain.

Nipper spoke up once more, seemingly not as dismissive of his question as his mate was. “That doesn’t explain why she was in the  _ break room _ that’s for  _ employees only. _ Nor why she was sitting on that couch. Or why she was sitting so close to Razz’s mutt.” Your nose wrinkled instinctually at how he referred to Hickory. Sure, Razz was always called him ‘mutt,’ but that was never meant in a harmful way and his name was used often enough by others that it wasn’t hard to figure it out.

Unfortunately it seemed your reaction hadn’t gone unnoticed. “Yes, pet. Why were you sitting next to the  _ mutt _ on the couch when you shouldn’t be on the furniture.” Of course Digger would notice. He only saw movement, so naturally he could have easily spotted even a minute reaction from you. “Speak bitch,” he growled out after you were silent for a long moment.

“Sorry sir.” Your throat felt itchy as you spoke, but you did you best to ignore it while trying to project your voice as clearly as possible. “I was sat there and told to stay while I waited.” You didn’t want to talk more than you had to, so hopefully that explanation was enough. It wasn’t likely, but you’d begun to start holding on to even more the vainest of hopes recently - as if hoping to see your family or friends again one day wasn’t bad enough - so why not add in one more.

A paw shot out and grabbed your hair roughly and forced your head back so you’d look at Digger. You let your body be manipulated this way without any fight as you hid your reaction to the pain of your hair being pulled in such a way by clenching your teeth together. The snarling snout of your former master was much too close for comfort while his eyes were narrowed in a way that might have caused some fear in your at some point, though that time was far in the past by now. “It’s master to you,” he growled. You felt some spittle fleck against your face, but managed to keep your reaction down to a nose twitch of disgust rather than a full on reaction. It wasn’t hard for him to pull you from Pippa’s arms - which you felt some relief over - by your hair before he roughly shoved you away from him and the other dogs. Not expecting the sudden movement, you tripped over your own feet and stumbled until you fell back first into a table. A sharp pain jolted up your spine at the point of impact as you fell down before your head knocked against the table and a throb of protest erupted from there as well. “What do you say? Speak.” The tone was harsh and demanding, promising more pain as you tried to reorient yourself a bit. That was okay, you deserved it for everything you’d done. As gross at it made you feel, you’d felt off without being punished like this while living with the skeletons. Sure there was that one time with Hickory, but they’d all been careful not to repeat it even when you did things that must have been wrong.

Despite knowing the next words out of your mouth were going to cause you more pain, you didn’t care. No matter how much influence Digger used to have over you, he wasn’t your master anymore. “Sorry sir, but you aren’t my master anymore. I live with my new masters now.” This just caused another growl to come from the dog monster that’d moved to tower over you.

“Multiple of them, huh? Are you a submissive whore for them? Bet you love it. They’ll tire of you soon given how broken you are.” A kick hit you roughly in the stomach and you couldn’t respond to the question like you were probably expected to as the air wheezed out of you.

As you gasped for a breath and stared at the ground while waiting for further punishment for not responding, Nipper pipped up. “We should probably do something about the mutt. Don’t want him waking up and ratting us out.”

An angry huff came from Digger, and lucky for you, it seemed he was going to forgo your punishment for a little longer to deal with this problem he’d been presented with. “Pippa, grab his soul. We can force him not to say anything if we have that as a bargaining chip. Nipper, block the door so we don’t get any unwanted visitors.” You felt like ice was forcing its way through your veins at his mentions of Hickory’s soul.

“Wait!” You pushed yourself into a sitting position to try and make yourself more noticeable so hopefully they’d listen to you. A kick landed on the shoulder for the arm you were using to support yourself and you collapsed once more.

“I didn’t tell you to speak, slut.” You knew the warning to shut up, but you couldn’t find it in you to care at the moment. Hickory’s soul could easily get violated here and the thought made you sick.

So you forced yourself into a sitting position once more despite being terrified of what your words could cause. You just couldn’t let Hickory be in danger for your mistakes though. You could wait out your punishment, but you wouldn’t let others be dragged down with you. “I… Just... “ You took a deep breath and just decided to get it out as quickly as possible, especially as you saw Pippa getting close to where Hickory slept. “Leave him alone and I’ll do whatever you want!”

The room went quiet and still for a moment. Thankfully, this meant Pippa wasn’t retrieving Hickory’s soul. “Anything?” Digger asked as he turned to look down at you appraisingly. Your throat felt tight, and so you nodded instead since you didn’t think you’d be able to get any noise out at all like this. A wild grin split across the dog monster’s face, but you couldn’t find it in you to regret your decision as he waved Pippa away from Hickory’s prone form. You could take whatever was wanted of you, you’d done it before after all. You deserved all of this, but Hickory didn’t. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Well then I guess we should get out of here so we can make good on that without the mutt finding us here in order to be able to pin any blame on us. I know a place where you can wait and you won’t be found until we get off of our shifts. Come.” You nodded once more and struggled up onto your feet despite the protests of your body where you’d all been hit in some way. You didn’t bruise easily, but your back felt like that was going to bruise at the very least. Hopefully you hadn’t hit your head too hard either since that was supposed to be a bad thing too. Nipper and Pipper were quickly out of the door as you followed Digger who trailed behind them with your head to the ground. A myriad of emotions danced through you, but relief was one of the more prominent ones given that you’d managed to spare Hickory from all of this.

A hand suddenly landed on your shoulder causing you to freeze, though the voice that followed shortly after sent chills up your spine. “W h e r e  d o y o u t h i n k y o u ‘ r e g o i n g ?” Hickory was behind you with a hollow voice that you’d never heard from him before. You hadn’t even heard him move, and if he’d teleported then you must have been too distracted with your emotions as you hadn’t felt it either. Apparently neither had Digger as you could see his feet leave the ground in surprise as a yelp of shock left him before you were sure he quickly pulled himself back together.

“None of your business,  _ mutt _ ,” Digger growled as he turned back to where the two of you stood.

“that’s where you’re wrong, since this is my human.” Hickory’s grip on your shoulder tightened slightly. A spark of pain ignited in your arm as that was the same shoulder that Digger had kicked, but you kept your mouth closed and your reaction internal as to not bother the monsters having an argument over you.

It wasn’t a conversation for your lowly human ears anyway, so you just tuned them out. Actually, you tuned out the whole situation. You didn’t want to be there and you were sore and just not in a good place mentally. It was easier to escape like this than have to deal with what was going on. You could wait for it to pass until they had figured out what to do with you. Your input didn’t matter anyway. Just a lowly human whose purpose was to serve and entertain monsters while being an obedient pet who even accepted any and all punishments that came your way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, for those of you who skipped down here for the summery, here's the run down;  
> The MC hear's voices outside of the room, and recognizes one after they grow a bit louder. Her suspicions of who it is are confirmed to be true when three dog monsters - a Dogamy and Doggeressa named Nipper and Pippa respectively, and a Doggo named Digger - enter the room. It's then revealed that Digger is the MC's old master and that she recognizes him in particular because of a rip in one of his ears that she'd caused herself. They don't notice anyone else is present at first until Hickory snores and they look around for the source of the noise. They notice and recognize the MC. Nipper pulls her off the couch and demands to know why she's there, followed by Pippa pulling her from Nipper's grasp to hold her close in a tight hug while bringing her closer to Digger. Pippa mentions not knowing why Digger ever got rid of the human because she was a lot of fun before Digger responds by telling her that the human is far too broken to be entertaining anymore. She is then commanded to speak to tell them why she's there and she does so while referring to Digger as 'sir' which pisses him off since he believes she should still call him 'master' and he shoves her towards a table where she hits her back and head as she falls to the ground. She's kicked after being commanded to tell him why she won't refer to him as master and she tells him that it's because she has knew masters now. Nipper brings up that they shouldn't be going at this where others can find them and Digger tells Pippa to grab Hickory's soul so he can't rat them out. The MC panics and offers everything she is up in return for them leaving Hickory alone. The dogs take the offer and go to leave with her so that they can take her home later as she's relieved she could save Hickory, when Hickory grabs her from behind and questions what they're doing. Hickory and Digger proceed to get into an argument as the MC zones out and loses herself in her thoughts to wait it out.
> 
> Okay. Now that I've finished that, I just want to apologize for taking so long on such a short chapter. I struggled a bit with how exactly I wanted to word the beginning and wrote it a couple times over before I was pleased enough to consider it passable to work with. I've been waiting to write this for a while actually, and I'm really happy to have finally written it to at least share just who in the world the mysterious old master is. Now you guys all have an actually known character to hate instead of just an ambiguous monster who exists somewhere. I really upset my friends while writing this chapter when vaguely mentioning that she let herself get beat up while reminding them that she's totally capable of fighting back. Feel free to vent your feels at me in the comments, or over at [my tumblr](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/) for my stories that's actually just for this one until I write another. Go ahead and ask questions here or there, and know that I've been trying to figure out shorts to write for over there that will add to the world this story takes place in, but I'll make sure aren't needed in order to understand the main story itself. Which reminds me that I should go work on writing some more shorts for over there. Hope you all have fun in the meantime and have a good rest of your day.


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Regression.

“SO THEY BEAT HER AND YOU DID NOTHING?” Razz was scowling at Hickory, who had the decency to look guilty at his brother’s accusation. You’d zoned out pretty hard, but Razz had come at some point during the argument between Hickory and Digger and the dog monsters had left to go have their break elsewhere. You didn’t know where they’d gone, and you didn’t want to know either. If you never saw those three or their friends ever again, it’d be too soon.

Hickory shifted from his spot on the couch. “i was going to, it’s just that…” As he trailed off, his gaze moved over to you. You turned your head towards the ground in front of where you were hugging your knees while sitting next to the couch. It was best that you sat here, you didn’t deserve the couch. Pets shouldn’t be on furniture anyway. “it’s just that she talked. they made her talk and apparently digger is her old owner, but it doesn’t seem he was a good one...” The silence in his room after he said that felt heavy against you and you buried your face into your arms to try and hide from it.

“I…” Razz didn’t seem quite sure about what to say. “I see…” Footsteps that had to be his moved over to stop in front of you. “Human. Look at me. Please.” The please was added more as an afterthought from the sounds of it. Still, you turned your gaze up to meet his at the request. His eyes were gentle as he took in your face, eye lights darting around as he took you in. “Where were you all hurt?” Despite the tone being gentle, you knew the question had to be a command for you to inform him. So you brought one hand up to touch the shoulder that had been kicked before moving down to your stomach which had suffered the same fate, Razz’s eyes watching your actions like a Woshua keeping track of dirt. Then you brought your knees down and leaned forward so he could see as you touched the sore spot along your back and on the bottom of your skull from smacking against the table. While your scalp was still irritated slightly by where your hair had been tugged, it was mostly fine as long as you left it alone, so you didn’t see it as a concern.

A hand gently touched your bruising shoulder and you closed your eyes since they couldn’t be seen anymore anyway. Internally you prepared for the sore spots to now be used to deal more pain to you or to try to manipulate you into something. Despite knowing that this wasn’t what should happen, you couldn’t help yourself. Seeing your old master and being pushed around like that was doing bad things to your head. You think you remember reading about it when you were younger. A relapse is what it was called if you remember correctly. You never thought it’d happen to you. Why would you have ever thought it would? You had been young and thought yourself invincible - even after some of the close calls you had. Back then you’d bounced back quickly because you had your friends and family to support you, and because they’d been short moments followed by ample time to recover. Kind of hard to recover from something when you were stuck in it for who knows how long without freedom from it in sight. Digger was right. You were broken. The skeletons just didn’t see it yet or they’d probably throw you out too. That was okay though, you could go look for your family then. As long as they were okay and alive and not dead somewhere in a pit that looked like an endless abyss but that actually ended in deadly stalagmites. Your thoughts were rambling and this was definitely not the place you needed them to be in, so to steady yourself you took a slow breath.

“raspberry...?” Hickory’s voice, although quiet, breaks the silence that fallen over the room with ease. It’d been forever since you’d heard anybody call Razz by his full name, so it caught you off guard. However, it seemed to be just what he needed to snap back into whatever he was doing.

The hand on your shoulder was removed and the sounds of movement in front of you reached your ears, though you still didn’t bother to open your eyes. “Hickory. Take her home and have the others check her over. Have one of them heal her, but don’t leave her side or tell the others what happened until I get back. I’ll wait here for Edge since apparently he’s the one that brought her in here.” It was so weird to hear the brothers calling each other by their names and Razz speaking in such a subdued and quiet tone.

“On it.” Add Hickory’s serious tone to the list of things that felt weird about this situation. Though you didn’t have long to dwell on that as arms gently wrapped around you, avoiding pushing hard on your sore spots while still getting a firm grip on you. Instinctually, you went lax and leaned into Hickory as to seem more compliant. Knowing that his grip on you was also likely because he was going to teleport, you knew leaning in like that was probably for the best anyway as you braced yourself for the jump.

Sensations beyond Hickory’s grasp on you disappeared for a moment as he jumped, though you swore you heard a voice calling your name. Before you could properly react however, you were out on the other side of the jump and back in the house. Both you and Hickory came out standing, and so he moved to have you sit on the couch. You didn’t feel comfortable there after everything that had just happened, but if your master put you there, then you couldn’t fight it either. No matter what you wanted, what your master wanted was more important.

The feeling of magic that accompanied teleportation was enough to let you know you’d been left alone again. Silence felt suffocating and you wished for at least the tick of the clock from the break room. Without sound and with your eyes still firmly shut, the air around you began to feel oppressive as well with a frigid bite that you recognized all too well. That along with another scent that assaulted your nose that you never wanted to have to smell ever again. Despite trying to remind yourself that you weren’t back in that basement room. You were on the couch in the skeleton’s living room and not on that bed you only got to use with your old master’s permission. All you had to do to prove where you actually were was open your eyes, but you were scared. Scared that if you opened them, you wouldn’t be in that living room, but actually back on that bed and that everything with the skeletons had just been a dream. A chill crawled up your spine as your senses betrayed you and effectively brought you back to that room as far as you could feel. The bed that you could feel the springs in and whose blankets were slightly scratchy against your skin, but was leagues better than the floor that you usually slept on, the air that was already cold in the unheated room that had a floor of stone and walls that were a dull grey that had a large piece of wood put over where the window much have been near the ceiling. The weight of the collar around your neck felt heavier than it did before and your clothes didn’t feel anything more than restrictive and fleeting as they’d likely be torn apart by your old master as soon as he wanted to use you again. Everything nice you’d had on you when your old master found you was gone meaning you owned nothing - not even your body. The pains in your body was nothing new when it came to your old master. It was worse when he’d first grabbed you, back when you fought every step of the way and nearly died more than once to his anger at your disobedience. You can’t remember how long you’d been resistant, but eventually you gave up. That fighting spirit wasn’t what you were great at, but you thought you could last longer if you waited longer. You don’t know what you had been expecting. Nobody knew you were there, so nobody would have come to save you. Small mercies were that you didn’t end up enjoying it and becoming a willing slave to him forever. You’d waited him out and hadn’t lost sight of who you were. Perhaps being in tune with your soul helped with that. None of that changed the fact that at the end of the day you were still broken by it.

Air was displaced near you and you curled into yourself more at the feeling of multiple nearby presences. Something soft was then touching your arm gently and you went completely still as you held your breath. At first your mind tried to convince you that it was a furred paw on your arm, but as the hand moved down to your hand and began to rub soothing circles you realized that it couldn’t be fur - and definitely not a paw belonging to your old master - and that it was indeed a soft fabric. A voice was quietly murmuring to you and you dared to peak at who it was. Relief flooded through you in waves as saw the couch beneath you as a blue gloved hand was over yours. It wasn’t hard to attach that glove to a skeleton in your mind and you found yourself a bit more relaxed now than you had been just moments before. Another blue glove came up to surround your hand in a reassuring grasp. Magic crackled around your hand, but didn’t touch it as you realized Blue was asking you a question. Noises were too muffled to properly hear at the moment, so you just nodded and hoped that was the right answer. It seemed to be as the magic touched your skin and ran up and around to target your sore spots, the warmth of healing magic soothing away the pain. It chased away the chills in your system and helped ease away the last of your panic in soothing waves that lapped at your soul, but never attempted to actually touch it or interact with in as to leave you your privacy.

As soon as Blue had pulled away from you, Hickory grabbed you and picked you up. You could walk fine by yourself, but you didn’t want to upset him, so you just remained silent instead. He walked off even as you saw a disgruntled Blue over his shoulder. “AREN’T YOU GOING TO TAKE ME BACK?!” he called after Hickory. The skeleton holding you simply ignored him and continued walking away. After the living room was out of sight, you could hear Blue muttering in an upset tone about lazybones and something about time you couldn’t fully hear as you were carried up the stairs.

The trip ended with you placed down on Hickory’s bed as Hickory went over to his desk. The desk was still piled high with stuff just like last time, but things had been moved around and a few papers littered the floor around it. You looked down at the bed and the carpet next to it and noticed they were both neater than the last time you were in here too. The carpet actually lay parallel with the bed this time around. You couldn’t have been placed on the bed just because it would make a comfortable spot for you to sit. A pet is a pet - an animal whose comfort isn’t as important as the master’s comfort. If you had been set here, then surely you’d be used for Hickory’s comfort? He hadn’t seemed to want what your old master did though if the last time you’d been on his bed was any indication. Maybe he wanted to cuddle you again? You wouldn’t be opposed to that - not like your opinion mattered.

You let your gaze rest on the carpet next to the bed as you heard something scrape across the floor. The desk chair maybe? Why would he grab that, though? There was plenty of bed for him to sit on if he so wished. Maybe he didn’t want to be near a disgusting thing like you though since apparently he’d heard to whole conversation after waking up to your weight leaving that couch. He knew how disgusting and broken you were now. You wouldn’t be surprised if he tried to convince the others to get rid of you just like your old master had done once he was bored with you and your lack of reactions.

“hey… look at me.” There was a tone of command in Hickory’s voice that he didn’t usually have. Being a good pet, you listened to it and raised your head as you were told. The chair was a few feet from the bed with it’s back towards it and Hickory was straddling it as he had his arms resting crossed on the top of the back. His head rested on his arms as he stared at you, taking you in, and there was a long moment of silence that made you more uncomfortable the longer it lasted. Despite wanting to turn away, you had to wait until Hickory was done with you before you could do what you wished again - which was honestly just curling up in a corner and hoping you were forgotten for at least a little while. He seemed to be debating something as he sat there and watched you. It didn’t take long for him to come to a decision though. “You’d mentioned something about no longer being your master, so was one of them your owner before you wound up in the shelter that you got adopted from?” You nodded. If he wanted to ask questions then you could deal with that. “what did they do to you?” You shifted uncomfortably as you couldn’t answer the question without speech, but you didn’t want to speak. “speak.” A feeling of betrayal stabbed through your soul at this command. He really had been paying attention to what Digger had been saying. Thoughts of how kind he’d been to you and how safe you felt last time you were in this room only make the feeling of betrayal sting more and you felt the burn of tears wanting to come, but you fought them away as you focused on answering.

“While I was in the care of Digger, I had any possessions I had on me when they first obtained me taken from me.” You brought one hand up to touch the space where a necklace had once rested above your soul. “I was chained up in a room and raped by him and his friends, abused as part of my training to be a good pet, and given just enough to keep me alive. Other exercises that were used to make sure I knew my place included bringing me to the brink of death while making sure I would survive and violating my soul. When Digger deemed me too broken and no longer entertaining to play with, I was thrown out so as to no longer be a waste of space, time, and resources.” Hickory’s expression grew darker the more you talked. While a part of you said that this was him growing angrier at your old master and his friends with every bit you explained, another part insisted that his expression was over how your attempt at keeping a neutral voice kept faltering as you fought back the tears that wanted to come.

The monster in front of you didn’t seem to know what he wanted to ask about next, and you could see him turning the ideas over in his head. “You said that you obtained by them, meaning you weren’t raised by them?” You nodded your head as Hickory’s expression grew more serious without going the full lengths it went when he had interrupted your old master trying to take you away back at the guard station. “Tell me how.”

A shaky breath filled your lungs as you attempted to stabilize your emotions a bit more before speaking once more. “I was… distracted… and it was getting dark and I had no place to go since I didn’t know the area or where was safe for me to stay. Digger found me while… I was scared... and offered to let me stay at his house for the night and in the past I had come to know monsters as creatures that are only helpful and those I could trust with my whole soul, so I had no reason to doubt his offer. He turned on me after I was within his home by locking me in a room and leaving until I eventually passed out from exhaustion so he could chain me up to make it harder for me to fight back as he trained me.” You decided that some parts of that story were best to omit for now. He hadn’t asked for the full story, so it was probably okay. They weren’t really things you wanted to talk about now either. The way Hickory was eyeing you after that explanation made you a bit uncomfortable and you couldn’t help but shift on the bed. You didn’t speak up again though. You had answered and so you didn’t need to speak any more.

After a hum, Hickory decided that he was satisfied with that answer and moved on. “What did they take from you?” You hand above your sternum tightened as you looked at him. “Speak.”

“My nicer clothes were removed before I was chained and the rest were torn after the chains were on so that they could be removed without removing the chains. The only thing that really had value to me beyond my phone was the handmade, one of a kind necklace that had been given to me by somebody who was important to me before I ended up in this place without anyone or anything I knew.” Hickory looked surprised at this. You couldn’t tell if it was the comment about a phone or the comment about the necklace and special person that threw him off. He seemed unsure of what to say now.

Instead of speaking, he got up off of his chair and walked towards the bed. You took that as his order no longer needing to be followed and lowered your head towards the ground. Hands clasped together in your lap and you pulled your legs as close as you could get them without pulling them up to your chest. If he wished to sit down on the bed, then you’d not get in his way. A feeling of another weight joining yours on the mattress confirmed that he was joining you on the bed. It was closer than you expected. Unwillingly, you stiffened as arms wrapped around you, though confusion was quick to overtake you as well. Even more so when Hickory’s head found a home on top of yours. “we’ll help you.” He went quiet for a moment and you thought that was the end of it until he breathed out two more words. “i promise.” That had your soul freezing in your chest as you thought about the implications of those words. Promises weren’t to be taken lightly or made without there being serious weight being put behind them. How could he be so sure of the help everyone would have for you? Sans seemed to hate you, and you could only imagine that Edge and Razz might now too after you were so weak - though you’d have thought Hickory wouldn’t want to help you after everything for that matter. It’s not like you got along with Red much to begin with anyway either. The tears you’d been fighting after that sense of betrayal welled up in your eyes and there wasn’t much you could do to stop them this time. The emotions flowing through you with the weight of the promise made was just so overwhelming after everything you’d gone through. After your old master, you would have never thought any monster outside of the ones you knew before everything went awful would ever want to help you ever again. You were so ready to be thrown out on the street again so you could find a way to remove the chip in your ear and take off in search of your family once more. The promise felt special, like it was giving you more than just the offering of help. It was like it was also promising to give you a family once more. Maybe not your actual family, but one that was here to support you until you ended up with your real family once more. You’d like that a lot. If they helped you, maybe you’d stop being so scared of monsters again. Maybe you could actually interact with them like a normal person. You wanted that with your whole soul. Someplace you could feel truly safe again. Someplace where you could come to love the world again. The thought made your soul sing and the tears come a little faster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story needs more happy fluff with all the skeletons helping with the recovery from all this trauma.
> 
> In the meantime, feel free to come hop over to [my tumblr](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/) and say hi or something. I've been working on another short for over there, but it's not up yet since I'm getting fussy with wording. Hopefully that will be done soon so there'll be even more extra content for you all to read if you want.
> 
> Until next time everyone.~


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> .

The next morning was terrible.

It wasn’t because of Edge and Razz’s looks that they tried to hide from others, nor the uncertainty with which Red and Sans looked at you. It also wasn’t the looks of confused worry from Stretch, Blue, or Papyrus - even if Blue’s looks were more intense than the others given he was the one who had needed to expend the energy to heal you and they would have taken enough energy for him to question things. Hickory wanting to cuddle you or just be near you like a personal guard dog was nice, though you really weren’t feeling touchy feely at the moment. You’d been allowed to sleep in - something you didn’t think you’d do, but it probably would have been nice if this was any other day. Those were all fine, and you could deal and readily welcomed some of that. Even the food you’d been given was wonderful.

Today was terrible because you woke up with horrible stomach pain. You’d never felt such a pain in your life and you didn’t understand where it came from. You couldn’t have gotten that sick so fast, surely? Though you were having problems with being too hot one moment, and too cold the next. What had probably made this all worse was when you’d finally run off to the bathroom to find your underwear soaked through with blood. Luckily you were wearing a skirt without any tights, so nothing else was covered in the substance, but you had freaked out quite terribly upon that discovery. The blood had luckily not gotten on any of your other clothes, but you had no idea what to do with the soiled object or how you were to get another pair without somebody seeing the blood you could feel running down your inner thigh. It felt so strange and gross and you weren’t sure exactly what to do, but cleaning up a bit of the blood was probably a good way to start. It was a good thing that the bathrooms in the house had been stocked with toilet paper after you came to live here since you still needed to use them for liquids given that water didn’t have magic in it - or enough of it at least - to have your body treat it like mostly magic based monster food.

No matter what, this was still super gross. It was gross and you were in pain and you just wanted it all to stop. Maybe you should see if any of them know the magic needed to stop this since what must be your menstrual cycle just disappearing would be suspicious and random if you didn’t ask for help. Though now that your hands were covered in blood and the mess was mostly cleaned up, you threw your panties in the sink and began to try to was the blood off since you didn’t need more questions when somebody saw you. Hopefully the blood would also come out of the poor fabric that had soaked up plenty of it.

Knocking came from the bathroom door eventually and you felt your face heat up in embarrassment as you realized all your panicking and trying to figure out what to do had taken quite a while. You’d been in the bathroom for at least an hour, so the worried voice of Hickory on the other side made perfect sense even though you really didn’t want him to be worried about you any more than he already seemed to be with how much he was clinging to you today. You’d barely gotten free to go to the bathroom by yourself as it was. Rather than risk him just teleporting in while driven by worry and having the possibility of having him see something you really didn’t want him to see, you went over to the door and cracked it open. The ground had become very interesting while doing so and you stood there with the door partially cracked as he ranted both worried and relieved things you couldn’t pay attention to. Though when he went dead silent, your eyes quickly snapped up to look at him, only to find his gaze was no longer on you, and in fact going over you to stare at something in the room. You turned to follow his gaze and felt your soul squeeze once you noticed that he had a very clear view of the sink of reddening water from soaking your underwear in it.

All that worry and relief that Hickory had been expressing quickly turned to panic and as you glanced back at him, you were pretty sure you saw some fear there as well. Understandable if he knew enough about humans to know that blood usually only left when one was hurt. Since you weren’t budging from the door, Hickory teleported into the room. He had his phone out in one hand and was trying to get to the sink area to reach the cupboards. He was probably going to grab the first aid kit, but you were being stubborn and fighting him off. Maybe it was just the fluctuation in your emotions that sometimes came with your menstrual cycle that was giving you this stubborn streak, because you were pretty sure you wouldn’t be acting this much against a master for any reason normally - even if you were getting more comfortable around these skeletons. That voice of fear that had been beaten into you was quietly whispering about how you’d get punished for this, but it was easily ignored thanks to the stubbornness and the fact that Hickory just seem vaguely annoyed rather than actually upset at your actions.

A few things got knocked over in your struggle to keep him back - though thankfully none fell into the sink - which naturally drew the curiosity and attention of the others. Razz was the first one at the doorway, but he just looked befuddled by what you and his brother were doing. Sans was next to blip into existence in the doorway, though his eyes went dark the second he saw you and Hickory wrestling and you soul flashed blue as your gravity suddenly pushed you towards the bathtub with a force you couldn’t fight. A squeak left you and your hands shoot down to your skirt to make sure nobody could see underneath it as you toppled into it as that would be mortifying given the circumstances. You flailed around a little in the tub to try and get up as to keep insisting you didn’t need a first aid kit for medical help, but the weight around your soul grew heavier and felt like it was squeezing almost. Any escape attempt were quickly dropped as you brought a hand up to your chest to grab at the stop above your soul in a useless attempt to weaken the grip on you as you were having a bit of a hard time breathing, despite the fact that your soul technically had no effect on any of your internal systems. Gravity magic was not one of those things that would change that fact, so it had to be a mental reaction to the heavy feeling on the culmination of your being. It probably didn’t help that the collar was still on you. After the events of yesterday it’d been forgotten by the others and you’d put on a decorative scarf to hide it today as you didn’t want to bother them about taking it off despite how uncomfortable it made you.

As you heard Razz drag Hickory out into the hallway so they could talk without crowding the bathroom, you sighed. What even was your life right now? You were pinned into a bathtub by gravity magic that just felt so off as you had to deal with blood hopefully not leaking out of you as you waited for skeletons to figure out what they were doing. With how you knew things to be, you’re pretty sure the humans back home would have thought you insane if you ever mentioned this to them. Of course, they would have thought you insane before you ended up in this place anyway, but that was beside the point.

There was a shuffling noise near the tub and you let your gaze move to see what was going on. Granted, you could only look up, but that didn’t stop you from seeing Sans standing over the edge of the tub as he stared at you with empty eyes. That scowling expression he wore normally wouldn’t bother you too much, but the way he loomed over your prone form brought back bad memories of Digger. Your breath hitched as your mind began working overtime. Thoughts you knew couldn’t be true pushing for your attention, and your panic was making them seem more likely with every moment. What if he he was holding you down with magic as punishment? Or for a punishment? Your chest heaved wildly for air you couldn’t seem to get while it felt like Sans was sitting on you. Was he going to use you while you were helpless again? Would the others even stop him? If he did and they tried to stop him, would he somehow overpower or keep them away as he did whatever he pleased? Would he even be deterred by the blood, or would he just not care? Your throat burned and and vision blurred, as you let yourself go limp. If he was to impose his will upon you, then you wouldn’t fight. Fighting always made it worse.

Sans’s visage was yanked away suddenly as normal white lights appeared in them and the heavy feeling in your chest disappeared. You quickly gasped for breath as you shot into action and moved as far as you could while trapped in a bathtub away from where he was now in the air. You blinked at that and noticed he was being held up in the air by Edge and it seemed that he was berating Sans and he definitely seemed upset, but all the words that Edge was saying just ended up as displeased gibberish to your racing thoughts. You kept your gaze mostly focused on those two, though it darted around just to make sure nobody else was coming to try anything. Razz stood in the doorway with his arms crossed over his chest and his body language screaming an aggressive attitude that he was fighting to keep tame, though his eyes were focused on Sans, you were were pretty sure you were safe from punishment from now. Hickory stood just behind his brother with his usual stance that was meant to be lazy or laid back, but it was rigid as his own glare at Sans rivaled the intensity of his brother’s. Pieces refused to fit together in your head as you took this all in while curling your trembling figure into a ball. When had you started shaking anyway? In hopes to kind of steady yourself, one hand reached up to the deadweight of the collar and held onto it. For a moment you entertained the idea of just ripping it off to get rid of at least one problem, but you were a pet and pets usually wore collars. That and this collar was not supposed to be one that any human could remove given the locking mechanism needing magic, so you decided to not even give it a tug. So instead you sat there and held the reminder of your status. It helped ground you slightly better than just sitting there letting your thoughts run wild was. At least your rapidly beating heart had slowed so the rush of blood in your ears was dimming.

“Hey.” The sudden voice, despite it being gentle and worried, had you flinching. You blinked to draw your thoughts away from the collar to notice Edge crouched next to the tub in a non threatening way. Sans was missing from view, but so was Hickory so you could make a guess as to them possibly being together. Razz’s own expression was similar to Edge’s in that they were both worried and directed at you. More noticeable was how Edge was crouched and appeared to be trying to make himself as small as he could without being uncomfortable, while Razz’s closed off sort of angry pose had shifted to look more like he was hugging himself in a self reassuring way. Despite having seen these two be vulnerable around you before, it still felt weird to see the strong looking monsters so fine with showing this weakness to you. What was probably more surprising about this was that they didn’t seem to mind showing it even with the other in the room. Perhaps they were just comfortable enough around one another to do so, since you highly doubted that this could be because of you. “Let’s get that off of you.” Edge reached his hand out towards you slowly, like reaching out to a startled animal. The quiet voice you’d drowned out with your stubborn attitude before spoke up once more telling you that a frightened animal was all you were to these skeletons. You had no come back for that. Instead, you let go of the collar and shifted so that it was in full view for Edge to grab, even moving slightly towards him so that he wouldn’t have to stretch too far to do something for you. It was best to make things easier for your masters so they didn’t get upset at you after all.

The collar slid off and your neck felt cold without it. That cold feeling was quickly fought away by the scarf as you tugged it back into place while sitting back up in your spot in the tub. Edge gave you a soft smile as he stood up. Then he turned to Razz and the two had to be on the same wavelength as they nodded at one another and Edge walked out of the bathroom while holding the collar as if not sure what to feel about it. Razz pushed himself away from the wall and slowly approached with that non threatening body language that felt weird to see on him despite knowing his soft side better than most already. He pulled down the lid of the toilet and used it as a seat as he looked at you. “My brother told me what he saw,” Razz started slowly while he waited for you to react. The most he got was a nose twitch of annoyance as you moved your gaze away from his. “Unlike my brother, I’ve done some in depth research about humans beyond just what’s good for them to eat or what to do for basic injuries. I may not understand what’s going on with you, but I have an idea of how it works at the least.” You stayed quiet as you kept your gaze averted. It was nice not to have him freaking out over the blood like Hickory had.

There was a long moment of silence between the two of you before he sighed. “I WILL TAKE CARE OF THE LAUNDRY, YOU CAN STAY HERE WHILE YOU RECOVER FROM WHAT JUST HAPPENED. HICKORY WILL BE BACK AFTER EDGE HAS DRAGGED SANS OFF TO WORK EARLY FOR HIS LATE SHIFT AND EDGE WILL LIKELY JUST GO FOR HIS LATE SHIFT AT THE SAME TIME THEN.” You could hear him moving to get up, but he sounded as if he was in no rush.

An idea flashed into your mind and you acted before thinking it through. Since the toilet was right next to the tub, you lunged and grabbed onto the back of the shirt Razz was wearing since it was his day off. He froze at your action and you went equally as stiff as you realized what you had done. A bit of panic begin to race through you as you made to pull away, but Razz reached behind him and gently touched your hand. You flinched on instinct because you could still remember how touching Digger without permission would cause you to be hit or otherwise punished. Razz’s hesitance at your reaction helped calm your nerves as he looked over his shoulder at you worriedly. He seemed to want to say something, but before he could, you decided just to get your idea done and over with. What was meant to be words began to slip from your mouth, but instead it was just some nervous noises that filled the air. Well that was embarrassing. You pulled your hand back to yourself as you looked off to the side, internally berating yourself for your actions.

“Human…” Razz had turned to face you once more when you quickly glanced over at him referring to you. He gave you a smile, which it wasn’t hard to tell he was using to mask his other emotions that he was dealing with. Curiosity sparked in his eyes despite his attempt. You opened and closed your mouth a few times with indecision and brought one hand up to grab at the necklace you still didn’t have, but shifted you motion to grab the decorative scarf you were wearing instead. You could see the way Razz’s expression slip slightly as he watched your actions - it wasn’t hard to guess why given that his brother had gotten you to talk about things yesterday. Taking a deep breath you steady yourself, you reminded yourself that Razz already knew you could talk, so it was probably best to just mention this to him rather than causing somebody else to freak out over your speech, and you really didn’t want to tell Hickory anything willingly just yet. You knew deep in your own soul you trusted Razz as he had proved himself to you with his actions so far. Actions spoke louder than words, but at the moment you would need words.

With all of that in mind, you closed your eyes and took another breath as your grip tightened on the scarf. “I know a way to deal with this that requires magic. It soothes the accompanying pain and deals with the blood.” Your voice was little more than a hoarse whisper, but it was obvious Razz had heard you as there was silence for a moment. Slowly, you opened your eyes to look at his reaction. The floored expression on his face was enough to let you know he wasn’t expecting anything you just did, neither the fact that you spoke, nore your words. Though you weren’t sure what surprised him more.

He needed a moment before he startled into action. You flinched at the sudden movement to which he gave you an apologetic glance - the closest you were likely going to get to an apology from him at the moment - before he took his own steadying breath to calm down the questions that were likely rushing through his own mind at the moment. When he looked at you again, the curiosity was much more noticable. “HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT? YOU KNOW FROM THAT ONE TIME THAT IF MAGIC IS USED ON HUMANS THEN IT ISN’T RECORDED, SO THERE’S NO WAY OF ME KNOWING HOW TO DO IT EVEN IF YOU DO. HOW COULD I HELP YOU WITH THAT IF I DON’T KNOW HOW?” There was a lilt of excitement in his voice despite his words. Though you had to pause and think for a solution to the conundrum you now faced.

Only one answer came to mind, and you weren’t exactly a big fan of the idea, but it was the only one you had. “My soul…” You trailed off at the sudden panic and worry that flashed across Razz’s face. Before he could protest, you quickly cleared your throat so you could continue. This had the added bonus of making him go quiet. “Information can be shared through souls, and I might be the only one to know the magic. Just… don’t look?” You fingers began to fiddle with the scarf as you looked at him for approval.

After a moment of looking torn, Razz sighed and nodded. “You seem to know more about souls than humans should be taught, but I won’t question it and will just let myself go under the belief that you overheard it from a monster who was talking about it around you for now. But, alright. I’ll close my eyes.” You nervously brought your own scarf up over your eyes before slowly lowering it down far enough that you could look at Razz again. He gave out another sigh. “Fine.” He sounded a bit more reluctant about this idea, but it luckily seemed as if he wanted to make sure that you felt comfortable while he dealt with your soul.

You helped him tie the bandana he wore around his head so that he couldn’t see, and then he made sure you were ready before reaching out a hand so that he could pull out your soul. The sensation was strange, but you didn’t fight it as you reminded yourself that he couldn’t see your soul and that he wasn’t going to use it against you. You stared at the small cartoonish, coloured heart in a seafoam green colour. While not noticeable to those who didn’t know what they were looking for, a core of magic could be seen in more minty white shades that would occasionally rise to the surface. The culmination of your very being. The soul of a human who wielded magic of their own. You’re lucky nobody had noticed it yet or else you would be dead. Something Digger loved to remind you of every time he pulled it out to torment you since he knew what he was looking at. Digger had never turned you in because he had you as a playtoy and the thought of having a human who had to rely on him being under his control had entertained him and when he had released you he had thought you were too broken to even matter - he likely also thought you’d die pretty quickly without somebody to support you after what he’d done. That’s why you hadn’t wanted Razz to see your soul since he likely knew what to look for given that he was in a member of the guard. Ideally no monster you didn’t trust to keep this secret would never see your soul ever again. You couldn’t die when you had your family to find after all.

Pressing onwards with this endeavor, you gave Razz a small verbal signal that you were ready. You’d have to guide him so that he didn’t end up happening upon something you didn’t want him to see. Anything magic related or anything that Digger did to you really. You didn’t want to have to live with having somebody else experiencing that, even if second hand. With his uncovered phalanges brushing lightly against the surface of the soul, he could no doubt feel your apprehension as it was surface level. He probably felt a bit of your thankfulness as well at him not going deeper than surface level. This meant he could just feel your most prevalent emotions and any other things about you that could be deemed surface level stuff, though you could still pass things to him. Your eyes slipped close as you began to get to work with your side of things now that what needed to be done was up to you. This had you quickly scrounging around for the memory of the magic you wished for him to know before drawing that up to the surface. If felt a bit like digging through a pile of things - thankfully you sorted the information in your soul well enough that it wasn’t a hard to locate - and then holding onto it while swimming up to the surface of a body of water you’d dived under. Though that second part could also be compared to willing yourself to move through a place while weightless. The exact feeling would be impossible to describe as it was so uniquely part of the soul that couldn’t be properly experienced without just doing it. You pushed the memory of the magic at Razz’s own, as his hand felt distinctly of his magic just as much as it did the bone that the magic took the physical form of. As he drew his hand away slowly, you quickly returned the memory to where it belonged. Your soul was returned to your body with a gentle push and you felt a tension releasing itself from your muscles.

Shifting your position, you opened your eyes to look at Razz. He was tugging his glove on while the bandana was still firmly tied around his face. A quiet giggle escaped you that you couldn’t stop, but it didn’t seem to bother the skeleton before you any. In fact, he just stuck his tongue out at you playfully as he straightened his gloves. This, of course, only pulled more giggles from you, though they weren’t quite as quiet as before. A proud smile formed as the tongue retreated and the bandana was pulled back down to where it belonged. This felt nice. Your soul felt light even.

“NOW THEN. LET’S GET THIS DONE SO I CAN ACTUALLY TAKE CARE OF THAT LAUNDRY.” He straightened his bandana and pretended to dust himself off to stall for your response. You smiled at him and nodded. You had no idea what his spin on dealing with the blood would be since you were no longer home and so it could not be dealt with in quite the same way, but you found you really didn’t care as long as the blood and pain were dealt with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Whistles innocently at this whole chapter's contents.*
> 
> So now that that reveal is out of the way, I feel like I'm going to need to explain the soul colour a bit more. However I'd first recommend checking out [this post](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/post/172124430817/what-traitcolor-is-the-readers-soul-i-have-a) on my tumblr as it talks about souls in general in this story first. I've also been answering a bunch of questions lately over there. So if you'd like to just check things out in general over there, then you can click [this link](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/) to head on over then. Otherwise, I'll be happy to answer questions in the comments or I'll see you all the next time I update.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My actual notes for some of this chapters contents include:  
> -BOOM SCREAM CUSS CUSS! RUDE!  
> -Ding dong! Who’s there? Open up bitch.  
> -SHINING TWINS! FUCK! Wait;;; No that’s not them. Nvm.  
> This is why you don't write your notes at 3AM.

Warm. Everything was really warm. Not unbearable, but pleasantly so. A warm hug from a very warm body. You giggled as you hugged back as best as your little arms could. You couldn’t wait until you were big so that you could better hugs. At least your birthday was just another milestone on the way to that goal - among others of course, but hugs were nice. You were picked up and put on one shoulder of the one you basically considered a second dad despite the fact that you were pretty sure your actual father would never get with him romantically. As you sat up there, you squealed in delight which caused him started laughing, making his shoulders bounce with the crackling noise.

From the other side of the room, you older noticed you and started grinning wider than before, which caused your other brother to turn. His eyes sparkled as he noticed you being so tall and he rushed over to demand to be picked up to join you. It was his birthday too after all. Well, it was his birthday and you just shared it since nobody knew when your actual birthday was. You didn’t mind though. Doing things this way meant twice as many presents for you two to end up sharing. It wasn’t like you ever got much beyond clothes and the occasional toy, but clothes were very important and you were glad to have something new too.

Your father walked into the room, but he was distracted. You glanced at your brother who sat on the other shoulder and grinned at him as he seemed to catch what you were thinking. Quiet giggles escaped you both as he counted down before you called out to him - you yelling ‘papa,’ and your brother yelling ‘father.’ The distracted caregiver looked up only to have his gaze turn to surprise as he took a step back before his parental instincts took over and he was rushing over to fuss over the two of you despite how safe you were sure you were in the hold of your other sort of father. Due to all his fussing, the two of you were put down much to your many protests. You liked being tall like that. Your brother quickly declared that when he grew up he was going to be that tall or maybe even taller to which you quickly nodded along in agreement. Being tall would be cool! That meant you could reach the top shelf so your dad couldn’t hide anything from you there and you being tall meant having long arms that you could use to give hugs to more than one person at a time with. This declaration had your older brother over to ruffle your hair, which had you whine as you tried to fight him off. That only egged him on further as he began to laugh. You looked around for your other brother in hopes of gaining an ally only to watch helplessly as he disappeared into the kitchen.

Alone. You were alone. That thought terrified you and you weren’t sure why.

The worried tone your older brother had as he bent down to be your size had you blinking. You weren’t alone, you had him here with you! And your dad was here too! Your kind of dad had followed your other brother into the kitchen, which meant there was probably something in there that he wasn’t supposed to get into yet.

Looking at your dad, you caught sight of something sad in his gaze.  That wasn’t how things went. Why was he sad? You pulled away from your older brother to bound over to your dad. As he looked at you in apparent surprise, you latched onto his leg in a hug. He chuckled and got you off of his leg only when he started to crouch down to your height to return your hug. His black turtleneck felt weird against your skin. It felt like, well, you weren’t exactly sure how to explain it. It felt solid, but it was if the soft knit of the fabric wasn’t really there. You dad was crying and you watched his shoulders shake as you hugged him closer even if you didn’t understand his apologies. Instead of asking questions, you gently shushed him and reminded him that it was okay not to be okay - something he always made sure you knew because emotions were important and acknowledging them equally so.

 

A loud crashing sort of banging noise caused you to startle awake. What time was it? What was going on? That wasn’t the noise of the house crumbling, was it? The loud swearing and yelling you could hear outside of your room had you worrying that it was indeed the house coming down because of one reason or another. The remnants of whatever you’d been dreaming about quickly melted away under the panic and adrenaline coursing through your body and pushing you up out of the room. The smell of smoke and some other scents that were burning and tickling your nose assaulted you as you watched the smoke streaming up steadily from under the door to that lab you hadn’t been allowed to go in. It was okay to enter if that was going on though, right? Just to make sure that everyone was okay and not dust or dusting. You wouldn’t get in trouble for going in there for that reason, right? For just a moment you hesitated before another bout of swearing had you moving towards the door. You found you didn’t care what punishment you got for this, if you could help save whoever was in there from dying, then it would be worth it.

Before you could be in its path, the door swung open violently like it’d been forced open by something strong or desperate - perhaps both - with a large plume of smoke joining the motion. The smoke detector in the hall began to finally screech as it recognized the smoke as existing and you flinched back away from the door to give room for however made it open to get out. It wasn’t hard to tell who was coming when a growl was heard just before the smoke detector was crushed under red glowing magic before it fell to hang precariously by just the way. You watched it sway nervously, but thankfully it looked as though the wire would hold it and that it was still in the plastic casing so you didn’t have to worry about sparks from that causing a fire. The poor smoke detector was another story, but at least it wasn’t screeching anymore. The whole house would probably be down here soon anyway if they heard what was seeming more like an explosion now than the building collapsing. Red stopped in the middle of the hallway to just drop Sans unceremoniously onto the floor. You looked nervously between the two, but the conscious skeleton didn’t even seem to notice you as he turned around to enter the smoke filled room one more. It was a good thing skeletons didn’t have lungs since they probably weren’t going to get as affected by this as much as you were without even going directly into the smokey.

Your gaze quickly moved to look at Sans. He was deathly still, even for being unconscious, and the faint grey tone his bones had was worrying. The discolouration could easily just be remnants of the explosion sticking to him, but you’d rather not risk it. Foregoing any fears you had of your masters, you dropped down on your knees by the still skeleton’s side and reached out with just enough magic to check the state of his soul without being intrusive or noticeable by outsiders. It jumped from you to make an assessment of his state as soon as your hand made contact with his sternum right above where his soul would appear should you call it. Panic twisted in your soul as you realized his HP was dangerously low. You couldn’t tell the exact count, but it seemed that it was slowly trickling downward still as the explosion had left some lingering effect and he was close to dusting if he didn’t receive help soon. Worriedly glancing around, you saw nobody who could offer assistance. Red was hidden by the smoke and from the sounds of things, the others were all upstairs and trying to figure out what was going on up there. You didn’t want to leave either in case his condition ended up rapidly worsening. It looked as though you only had one choice here. You’d have to heal him yourself. This would cause you soul to come out of the little hidey hole you had made for it and be easily seen by anyone who tried to take a peak as you needed it easily accessible in order to use magic, but you couldn’t just leave Sans to die either. You’d never forgive yourself if he dusted while you had the ability to help. While you’d have to be quick so nobody caught you, the least you could do was stabilize him since it’d probably be suspicious if he was perfectly fine when he should have been in this condition after the explosion.

The memories of how to heal were easy enough to pull to the forefront of your soul as it’d been one you’d experience most often and so was near the top of that pile in your internal plane. You readied it as you looked around once more. With nobody in sight and not seeming like they’d be there before you could help enough to keep him alive, you pushed the magic through you as your soul freed itself from behind your internal barriers. Magic rushed through you and you directed it down your arms towards Sans so that you could focus on his soul first and foremost. A sick pit filled your stomach with dread as you felt cracks beginning to form across the surface of the soul. Luckily they were only surface deep, but you’d have to draw out his soul to get a proper read on the damage and heal as much as possible. Without thinking, you did just that. The cracks looked back, but there was only two bigger looking ones with a third slowly making itself more prominent. Those shouldn’t be too bad to fix since they hadn’t set in yet. You should also only need to heal those and he should be stable, but the dust that was coming from his body should also be something you attempt to somewhat fix a bit to make him look a bit healthier.

With careful hands, you reached out to gently cup the air below the flickering and cracking soul. Magic poured from you as you drew it in from your environment and repurposed it so that you’d take longer to run out of potential magic. The cracks stubbornly refused you at first as your magic was seen as an unwanted invasion and you silently cursed Sans’s view of you being so cautious as that meant his soul didn’t trust your magic. You had to coax it into trusting that you were trying to help which only gave that third crack more time to grow. A faint hiss left your clenched teeth and the fussy soul gave in to your help. Healing from there was much easier as you filled the cracks with your own magic while convincing the already existing soul to stay together and fill in the spaces. The process felt agonizing slow, but you refused to rush it as souls were such delicate things. You felt lucky when you managed to get it far enough along to only have faint scars along the surface. His soul felt intent to stay together on its own now, so you let it return to where it belonged as you moved your hands to press on his ribcage in the spots where you remembered seeing where the pads for one of those defibrillator devices in a book your father had kept in his room. Magic rushed from you and around the prone form on the floor. Sans’s current clothes were singed and dirty, and there were a few holes that seemed to be burnt through and the bones beneath had burns to match, but you ignored those in favour for the fine layer of dust covering his bones. Some of it seemed to be contaminated somehow by the explosion, but for the most part is had simply lost the connection to the magic from his soul when it had started to sputter and fail him. You focused your efforts on pulling it back into his body. It could be naturally replaced even if you didn’t do this, but Sans would be in a weakened state the whole time and you’d feel responsible if he got hurt again because you just left him in that state. Unlike with his soul, his magic seemed quite eager to reconnect with the dust, but just didn’t know how so you guided it and instructed it in how to pull everything back together. Thankfully magic was plentiful in this household and so you had barely tapped into your personal reserves by the time you pulled your hands away. What you had lost could be easily replaced by eating some of the magic based food that the skeletons ate.

You were just tucking your soul away again, hiding from prying eyes once more to keep your secret safe, when Red came out of the lab again. The smoke from the room was thinner, but he was walking backwards as he somewhat struggled to drag Stretch out of the room. While panicking over the two of them, you hopped to your feet and rushed over to help Red. You expected him to complain, but he said nothing and only grunted as you also grabbed Stretch and aided in pulling him into the hallway. Beyond a few smudges of a dark colour on his cheekbones, you couldn’t see anything else immediately wrong with him, so he appeared fine enough for now. As Red dropped him, you fussed over the taller skeleton’s skull to see if you could notice anything that might have contributed to his unconsciousness other than a possible inference with his soul. Given that Red was still up and about, you doubted the inference was a factor here, though you wouldn’t rule it out given how dead on his feet Red looked. On the back of Stretches skull you found hairline cracks that were more like a crisscross of scratches along the bone. Perhaps his head had gotten smacked roughly against something which had caused this bout of unconsciousness.

Turning to share your findings with Red, your eyes widened in surprise as he looked like his legs were giving out under him. You were careful with Stretch as you let him go so you could dart over to grab Red before he could fully fall over. He was a deadweight against you and so you helped him slowly transition to the ground himself as thundering footsteps came down the stairs. Red said nothing and simply took your help without any flinching or complaint, which surprised you given his aversion to you since you’d flipped him what already felt like forever ago even though it was little over a week at this point.

The brothers of these skeletons were rightly worried when they came down. Edge was quick to carry Red into the entertainment area to question him. You showed Berry the small scratches you’d seen on Stretches skull and he was quick to worry, mumble about how Stretch was supposed to stay home with him and how Stretched worried too little about his own safety for his own good. You left him to it and hung back feeling kind of useless now that the three brother pairs were united. Papyrus suggested you to go upstairs where Razz and Hickory were getting ready for guests that were coming over later. You don’t remember hearing about that, but you supposed it might be good to try and get an understanding of those your masters knew so you could try and get more used to this home. You’d be here until you were thrown out or you could figure out how to find your family and friends who would no doubt get you away from here so you could figure out a plan for fixing things.

All you could do was watch as Edge helped Papyrus carry Stretch and Sans out to his car while you were eating the food Razz had given you. You weren’t hungry, but food was important so you ate anyway. Red shuffled after them with small complaints about how he was fine. Edge wasn’t having it and kept giving Red these looks that seemed to glare, but you were pretty sure that they were actually him checking his brother over in case he started to fall over again. The others were all off to work soon after this, which left you alone with Blue who kept nervously pacing around the living room. Not even a silent invitation to cuddle on the couch had stopped him and that had you worrying over him a little more as he was not the type to skip cuddles from what you’d gathered about him so far.

Just as you were about to get up and try playing the piano to soothe him, the sound of the doorbell rang through the house. That was the first time you’d ever heard the chime. Blue seemed to snap out of his worried state and bounced off to the front door to go answer it. You moved to the doorway between the living room and the hallway to listen in and try to watch without being too obvious. The sight of the front door had you pausing though. A large goat monster took up most of the space just outside of the door, but looked as though he was trying to make himself smaller as he was addressing two human children who were standing in front of him. He wore a fancy looking tunic of a rich cerulean colour that bore the emblem that looked both familiar and strange at the same time stitched into the front in a silver coloured thread. The brown pants he wore had flowers stitched into them in a golden colour and a silver circlet sat upon his golden mane of hair. A brilliant blue agate sat as the centerpiece of the circlet and it matched the tunic in a way that gave the large monster a very regal appearance.

“Thank you so much for letting them stay here today,” the large monster rumbled. You jumped where you were standing as you had gotten lost in the strange clothes. Blue quickly waved off the thanks with a wave of his hand, but before he could actually speak, the regal monster spoke once more. “Blue, don’t you say it is nothing. You did not have to accept our request for them to be here while we attended this conference. You could have refused and had them remain at our home.”

Blue waved him off once more. “IT REALLY ISN’T A PROBLEM YOUR MAJESTY.”

“Just Az is fine. We do not need such a formal relationship.” There was a warm smile on the large monster’s face as he spoke.

“OF COURSE MISTER AZ, BUT LIKE I SAID, I REALLY DON’T MIND. THIS IS A GREAT WAY FOR THEM TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE FOR A WHILE, AND THIS WAY THEY CAN MEET THE HUMAN THAT LIVES HERE!” You were pretty sure Blue had a huge grin on his face even though you couldn’t actually see his face.

A poke against your leg startled you away from your eavesdropping as your eyes darted down to see what had touched you. One of the humans who’d been standing in front of Az before was now just inside the living room with you. They wore a striped sweater that was azure and pale violet colour which let you easily identify them as a child. You pulled back into the living room and shifted awkwardly as you looked back at the rusty eyes that appeared to be studying you from beneath a mop of dark chocolate brown hair. The child felt as if they knew too much as they stared at you. A reddish brown head of hair quickly peaked into the living room as well and glanced at your with squinted eyes as if they were having a hard time seeing. You quickly realized that they were instead just looking for their fellow human as this child - since they were also wearing stripes - walked up to the other and grabbed their hand as the new child also played nervously with the end of their free hand’s sleeve. You smiled gently down at them as the pair seemed unsure of what to make of you.

After Az had left you had learned these two were the pets of the royal family from Blue’s kingdom and it was actually his job to take care of them when the royal family was busy. Often he would also end up watching their two children as well. The two human children were apparently named Kris - the one who’d poked you - and Rah - the shier of the two who clung to Kris until Blue had gotten out some art supplies so you could all draw. Both children could speak with their hands and words, though Kris was the only one of the two who verbally spoke while you were all together. Their speech wasn’t up to par with what you were sure kids roughly their age should be, but it was definitely far better than Corduroy’s ability to talk. Both seemed to prefer talking back and forth with one another with their hands. Blue also apparently knew how to speak in hands as he kept up with any questions the directed his way with that method just fine. At a questioning glance he told you that he had wanted to accommodate them and make sure that they felt comfortable with him. A smile broke out on your face at that and a warm feeling filled your soul. It was nice to see how far he was willing to go to make others comfortable and happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear this chapter was meant to be pure fluff. I don't know what happened. Actually, yes I do. Sans decided to stand right next to the object that exploded like a smart person and his near death because of that was kind of important to deal with. But hey, magic is cool.  
> In other news, I answered a bunch of questions over on [my tumblr](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/) last week, so that's there for everyone to look through if they'd like. A lot of people seemed to have it out for Sans and Digger when I had initially started answering questions, and that was pretty entertaining to look through. I'd also be more than happy to answer any more questions anyone fires my way. I might also spend a day just writing any suggestions for shorts based on suggestions you guys send me since the one I was writing with a certain glitchy friend ended up going nowhere. I'd even be willing to try and answer questions directed at the characters that will have them giving canon responses without that affecting canon - unless it's our glitchy friend of course. Who knows, maybe asking questions to random characters who've only shown up in the background or even ones you haven't seen yet might yield some results. There are a lot of characters from the community who are in this world who haven't found their way into the story yet if they ever will make more of an appearance than just being around in the background.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A starry sky paints a beautiful backdrop to all things, good and bad.

By the time Az showed up again you’d all drawn pictures of your family. You, of course, didn’t have anything recent to base the drawing off of, so you dids your best for what you remembered. The way you drew your father was also from before the incident because you wanted to focus on happier memories while drawing - not panicked terror of messing up or eternal dread that pressed in from every angle. Your older brother was about your height in the picture, he was a smidge taller though, but that came with him being roughly two years older than you. Then your other brother was slightly shorter than the two of you and your father still towered roughly a head above you and your older brother. You’d drawn them in outfits that you had gifted them in the past. You older brother had adored that stupid tie dye shirt you’d gotten him as a gag gift.

Blue had taken your picture and put it up on the fridge with his own, which you noted only had him and Stretch on it. The knock on the door came as he was finishing that, so he’d rushed straight over as Rah had pushed their drawing over for you to look at. It brought a smile to your face to see them, Kris, and two monster children all holding hands with what looked to be Az and the other monster who must be his wife - or was she his mate? It was impossible to know from a picture like this. You turned to Rah and smiled, raising your hands to speak to them in their preferred way of talking.  _ “Beautiful. I love it.” _ Both children paused what they were doing to stare at you with surprised expressions. Kris was suddenly jumping up in their seat to slam their hands on the dining room table that separates the two of you.

“Where did you learn that?!” Their eyes were narrowed at you in suspicion as they stared. “Blue said you didn’t communicate at all!” You sunk into seat under their shouted accusations. Rah, seeing your distress and being the gentle soul they were, tugged at Kris to try and get them to back down.

Az and Blue walked into the room only to pause at the sight. Blue jumped into action first, quick to try to calm Kris down while trying to figure out what was wrong. Az shuffled slowly over to your side and gave you a small smile. “Could I talk to your privately please?” You cautiously looked at Az and then glanced over to where Blue was arguing with Kris. “If you feel uncomfortable at any moment, I will let you leave. You have my word. He already mentioned that I had to ask you if you’d like to talk to me, though he’s given his blessing for me to do this.” You looked at him nervously as he respectfully waited for you to give your response. Despite the feelings of familiarity you got from him, you didn’t truly know him and that somewhat scared you. You had thought you could trust Digger and look where that got you. You calmed your thoughts with a slow breath. Blue trusted Az, and Az trusted Blue and obviously relied on him in some manners. Az likely wouldn’t do something to break his trust with Blue, and despite how strange it still felt to think it, you were important enough to Blue that Az doing something to you could break that trust between them.

Slowly, you nodded. You could at least listen to him. A paw reached out towards you to help guide you along with him, but you jerked away as you pulled yourself out of your chair to the opposite side of it to put something between you and the towering form of the boss monster. Boss monsters were able to feel magic flowing through people more acutely than normal monster. With your recent use of magic you had no doubt that even the monsters from your household would be able to feel it coursing through you as it yearned to be used more as it’d been so long since you’d used it before the healing you’d done this morning. With you lasting this long without getting caught, having it ruined now by simply being touched by a monster who could feel the magic rushing underneath your skin. Death was not something you wanted to face anytime soon with your family still out there somewhere.

Taking your retreat as you flinching, Az began to rumble out apologizes as he looked unsure of what to do now that he probably felt that he couldn’t touch you to comfort you. He gave up and just lead the way out of the room. You spared only a glance over your shoulder before following him into the quieter living room.

Being alone with the large monster, it wasn’t hard to feel small and intimidated by his well put together stature. So instead of focusing on that, while he seemed busy trying to pick his words you let your eyes fluttered closed as you listened instead. Since it was the two of you alone, his music filled the room over top of any lingering bits of music from the skeletons. The music was strong in a regal sense, but also carried a gentle paternal tune that weaved its way between the regal notes and complimented the other so wonderfully. Two seperate parts of himself that were equally important and complemented each other perfectly as they worked in harmony. A worried undertone also danced between the notes, mixing more with the paternal side of things than the regal side, making your tense muscles relax marginally. That worry was directed at you with the full force behind the paternal side of things, which was louder than the regal side at the moment anyway since that was the side that he was likely affiliating more strongly in the moment. You could trust him. This was the song of somebody who was in harmony with themselves, and who held no negative intent towards you. Maybe if you’d paid more attention to Digger’s song when you met him, you would have realized something was off. You’d been frightened when he’d offered you help though, and you hadn’t had reason not to trust a monster yet by that point, so you hadn’t thought to question his intent. You’d only realized there was something wrong when it was much too late to do anything.

Pushing those thoughts from your mind, you turned your attention back to Az as your eyes fluttered open once more. The big monster was waiting patiently for you with a soothing smile. It definitely helped a little, even if your soul was still giving the occasional nervous flutter. “Human, I would like to remind you that you may step out of this at any time if need be. If you’d feel more comfortable hearing this from one of your housemates, then I will not hold it against you. You’ve been through a lot so I understand if I do not hold your trust.” Silence filled the air as he watched you. How did he know any of what you’d been through? A nervous jump in your soul had you shuffling on the spot, not quite sure of what was going on or what to do. Seeming to be certain that you were staying, Az continued on. “One of the matters that was discussed between myself and the other royals who were able to come to our meeting today was of what we know of your situation. Rest assured that the canine unit from the Underfell kingdom has been taken into custody for the moment and have been suspended from duty until this investigation has finished. They’ll remain here for a while before they will be held within their own kingdom until they are either proven innocent or found guilty. Though from the sounds of what we’ve heard so far, what’s he done is very,  _ very _ illegal. You have my sincerest apologies for not having anyone recognize what was going on sooner. I know this might not mean much to you, but I could not say nothing when I have the ability to at least mention this to you.” While not fully able to truly digest all this new information, you found yourself nodding slowly anyway. Seeming to get that you needed time, Az excused himself and shuffled out of the living room. You watched him go and listened as he gathered the kids and they all said their goodbyes to Blue.

The rest of the day passed slowly as you curled up on the couch and watched a movie together. You needed the time to think things through. Thankfully Blue respected that you didn’t want to be touched and gave you plenty of space as he sat on the opposite side of the couch. A worried atmosphere lay under the calm one as the whole day finally caught up with the both of you. Three of your skeletal housemates had been caught in an explosion that had nearly killed one of them and knocked another unconscious. While Red had seemed fine, you had no way of knowing if it had somehow affected his magic or soul instead of his physical existence. It was a huge relief when Blue got a call from Stretch himself. Blue had been crying and you’d had to fight the urge to comfort him by way of hugs.

When Edge and Papyrus returned home with the three, Blue had launched himself into Stretch’s arms as he cried and admonished his brother for worrying him. Edge disappeared off into the kitchen as Red went into the living room and flopped onto the recently vacated couch to call the whole thing his own for a nap. Stretch carried Blue off into the living room as well where the two curled up in a chair together to continue watching the movie. It made your soul fill with warmth at seeing them like that. Though you had to hold back your explosion of emotions when you turned back to the only two in the hallway with you anymore. You weren’t sure where to focus between Papyrus’s fretting and Sans staring directly at you. It was expected that Papyrus would fret over Sans this much after the condition he’d been in after the explosion, but Sans’s gaze was unnerving to say the least. It felt like he was trying to look at your soul, which only caused you to draw back from the pair slightly while burying your soul deeper behind barriers to keep his possibly prying eyes far away from it.

You’d escaped off to your room not long after that to keep yourself far away from the skeletons so you didn’t risk any physical contact with them. Edge brought a plate of supper and you think everyone in the house pretty much assumed you were shaken by the events that had occured that morning. While that wasn’t exactly the reason you were hiding, you appreciate them respecting your need for some time alone.

 

It’d been hours after the sun had set and still you couldn’t sleep. The energy buzzing through you, begging to be used had decided to only get louder as time wore on. You supposed that it was your own fault that this was happening after forcing down your magic for so long. You’d been scared, and for a while you hadn’t had access to it at all anyway. Monsters had ways of preventing criminals of using their magic, and Digger had used one of those methods on you. Unlike normal however, he made it so it blocked close to all of your magic. That had been panic inducing and painful for the longest time. You’d had the magic coursing through you for so long that not being able to feel it was like losing a limb or vital internal system. This was the first time since back then that’d you’d used magic beyond the instinctual use of it once a month usually to deal with period problems which Digger hadn’t minded because he felt that meant he could keep using you through those times. Due to all of that, it made sense as to why your magic was so restless now.

Sighing, you knew you weren’t going to be able to sleep like this. Either you could find a way to use magic without alerting the members of your household, or you could try to hold it in for longer. Either way, you couldn’t do it here as there was a sleeping monster just on the other side of one of the walls and he’d likely wake up from the feeling of foreign magic nearby. Knowing this, you crawled out of bed and tugged on your trench coat since it had been pretty cool out lately. No leaves changing colour that would indicate fall yet - you were excited to see that transition - but cold enough to warrant a jacket at night like this at least. You were quiet as you slipped up the stairs and out of the house into the backyard after unlocking the door. As long as you locked it after going back inside, it should be fine.

The stars were beautiful. It took all your willpower to even just close the door behind you so you could walk out into the middle of the yard to get a clearer view of them. Unlike your older brother, you couldn’t name most of the constellations, but you couldn’t deny how amazing they were anyway. Just staring up at the open expanse with even just the few you could see through the haze of city light was enough to awe you. How anyone could ever take this for granted was something you’d never understand. Even though your neck hurt from holding it at this angle, you didn’t stop because that felt so disrespectful. It also helped that this sight was soothing your agitated magic.

A hand on your arm had you jump away from whoever it was as you yanked at your arm while pulling it close to yourself. Your eyes parted from the wonders that lay in the sky to find who had touched you only to see Sans staring back at you with wide, empty eyes of surprise. His left hand hung in the air in front of him and you couldn’t help but curl into yourself as you realized what that meant. Sans’s expression could just be about your actions, but you highly doubted that. You closed your eyes and made yourself as small as possible as you waited for him to do something to you. This new knowledge of his would mean your demise and he could easily kill you and take your soul as proof enough that his actions were justified. Silence reigned over the two of you beyond the sounds of the night itself. With each passing minute you found yourself trying to make yourself appear even smaller than you already were.

Everything seemed to freeze as Sans finally broke the silence. “i knew it.” You went tense as you could only assume this meant he felt himself assured in his thoughts that you were dangerous. “the healer had mentioned to me that i showed signs of recent healing and i was lucky for it because i might have died otherwise, though they also questioned why i hadn’t just been healed completely by whoever had done it. they thought it was one of the other skeletons in the house, but red had mentioned he had left me alone with you after dragging me out of the room before he went in again to get stretch. nobody else got there until after he got out again, so that means it must have been you who saved my life.” You slowly cracked your eyes open to look at him while trying to hold back your hope. “i guess i owe you a bit of an apology for my earlier behaviour and a thank you for saving my life.” He wasn’t looking at you as an embarrassed blue blush light up his cheekbones. “it doesn’t explain everything, but it does explain a few things, though i guess it doesn’t matter either way. we’re told we need to report humans who have magic in them, but you’ve been nothing but kind and gentle to everyone in this house the whole time, even going as far as risking this discovery so that i wouldn’t dust…” At this, he turned to look at you. His expression was soft and his eye lights were present and fuzzy with a kind of happiness to it.

You smiled weakly back at him. Your stance slowly returned to some semblance of normal, but you keep the arm he had grabbed hugged tightly to your chest anyway. You didn’t want to somehow upset or anger him. He held your life in his hands and he could chose to do away with it at any moment. There was no need for you to give him any reason to act upon that. Luckily he seemed a bit distracted from the fact that this was a thing given how lost in his thoughts he began to look. Maybe you could slip back inside without him noticing and could try to sleep then? Would he be upset if you tried to leave? Would it be because you didn’t say anything, or simply because you’re leaving in general? All you had wanted to do was marvel at the stars until you probably ended up falling asleep on the grass outside. Though you couldn’t sleep standing up, so you would have had to lay down for that to work. That was a good idea for a possible next time if you didn’t die soon: Watch the stars laying down.

“hey.” You tuned into Sans as he waved a hand in front of your face. “i, uh, this might be a bit much to ask you at the moment, but can i see your soul? like, draw it out into the open? i’ve never seen a human soul that could conduct magic before because of all the paperwork involved in getting one to research, and humans with magic are short in supply-” At your nodding, Sans cut himself off from his rambling. A happy and curious spark lit up his sockets which made you feel conflicting emotions as he also had the look of staring at an interesting project rather than at you as a sentient being. You wouldn’t take back permission though. This was what your master wanted. Manners were a formality so you wouldn’t even attempt to deny your master anything. That could just lead to punishment, or even death in this case given Sans’s knowledge about you. If you refused he could just kill you and see it anyway. So you carefully extracted it from the barriers you’d created around it so he could pull it out without at least breaking those so you could try to still hide this from the others.

Sans blathered on about how thankful he was and how excited he was, but you couldn’t really pay attention. Not with the feeling of your soul being tugged out distracting you. The dim yard was washed in faint seafoam green light with long shadows cast by both your form and Sans’s. His eyes zeroed in your your soul and you couldn’t help feeling even more like you were just an experiment to him. The way his eyes flicked over your soul followed the minty roils of magic dancing through your soul held such awe. Yet despite his attitude seemign positive, you couldn’t help like he was a predator watching his prey. Perhaps you were focused too heavily on the bad you’d experienced, but you really didn’t want to have to deal with that again.

A hand moving towards your soul caused you to startle. The slightly hazy edges to Sans’s eye lights that indicated he had been mentally far away while doing the action which vanished as he blinked while turning his gaze up to your eyes as his hand froze. He had a bit of a deer in headlights look that would probably be pretty funny if it weren’t for the situation. With a flush of what you were pretty sure was embarrassment quickly spreading across his face to cast a faint blue light to join the light of your soul, he pulled his left hand back to his chest in a somewhat timid seeming way that felt out of place for him. “s-sorry… i just…” The stuttering also felt out of place, though you supposed this wasn’t a normal situation either so you couldn’t expect him to act like he normally would - not like you really knew him well enough to know what he was usually like given that he was one of the ones you’d spent the least amount of time with from the house. “can i have a surface glance?” Despite knowing how easily it could go beyond that, you nodded anyway. It was more a reflex to being asked a question for permission than you actually wanting it, but you weren’t going to take it back. His hand was already moving to your soul once more anyway. It didn’t matter that this was something that should be intimate and done between family and lovers only usually unless you were in an encounter. You weren’t anything more than a pet so it didn’t matter. The social structure around the basis of manners surrounding a soul on existed between equals. You were basically nothing compared to monsters, so you shouldn’t be treated with that same respect and any laws that might be out there relating to the mishandling of souls didn’t matter.

The image of Digger holding your soul in a crushing grip while you screamed and begged him to let go flashed through your thoughts and caused you to tense. Phalanges just barely brushed across the edge of your soul before your panic exploded and your soul fluttered away from the touch despite your best efforts to keep it still. The touch didn’t return as you wrestled with the internal panic. You’d closed your eyes at some point, not remembering when, but also knowing you should have kept them open to watch Sans’s actions in case he actually did something with your soul. If you had watched though, you still would have forced yourself into inaction even if he did do something with your soul. You’d given Sans permission to touch, but you had never said how much. He’d said surface level, but that could still include him grabbing your soul and stealing it away from you so you’d be forced to be even more subservient to him than you already are. Hard to disobey somebody who owns and controls your very soul after all.

Lost deep in panic, you were barely registering what was going on around you anymore. What did it matter, you were probably dead anyway any moment now. So arms wrapping around your shoulders and pulling you into a tight hug against a solid feeling bony chest was not something you were expecting. Another jolt of panic rushed through you at your soul being crushed before you realized it was tucked away safely inside of you where it belonged once more. When had that happened? As long as it was safely away it didn’t matter, though it was still too exposed for your liking. Pushing it back behind your barriers was a messy ordeal, but you were too panicked to be gentle and make sure everything was perfect. It was good enough for now as long as it couldn’t be seen at a glance by anyone nosy enough to try. All the while the arms around you held firm and your mind couldn’t decide whether they felt safe or like a cage.

Soft murmurs reached your ears, though the words will still vague to your racing mind at best. The tone was soothing though. So were the circles being gently rubbed into your back. You hadn’t realized how tense you were until you started to relax into the chest of you were assuming to be Sans by the sound of his voice. His words slowly becoming clearer to you as your mind slowed. That rush of emotion was leaving you feeling worn out, but the way Sans was soothing you was also reminding you of the way your older brother in particular had handled you when you were scared or upset when you were younger. You other brother had his own methods and your father would always just carry you around or sit you in a room with him so you would know he was there since he kind of sucked at calming people despite being a father of three. The memories of your family had tears pouring down your face before you could even register what exactly you were doing. Your hands gripped tightly at the shirt Sans was wearing for his pajamas and you nuzzled your head down into his jacket’s hood. He didn’t even need his jacket with how warm it was, but perhaps he wore it like a comfort item just like why you used to never take off your necklace. It’d been around your neck since you got it up until Digger stole it from you while you were unconscious and unable to fight him over it. Not like you would have been able to keep it probably anyway, and you wouldn’t have been able to fight him properly anyway.

Thinking about that only make a loud sob you couldn’t hold back shake your form as you tighten your grip on Sans. He tightened his grip on you in turn as if he was scared of letting go and also needed the reassurance. “You’re okay. You’re safe. That demon can’t get you here. I won’t let him and I doubt anyone in the house will either. He can’t even get near you now anyway. He’s going to pay for what he’s done. I may not be allowed to have much of a position in his case beyond being a witness, but I swear he’ll be brought to justice. He can’t get you. You’re safe. We’ll keep you safe. You have nothing to worry about here. This is a place you can call home, and we’re happy to have you here.” His fervent whispers helped calm your soul as you cried out the wave of emotions. He sounded so sure of himself, and so serious. You couldn’t find it in yourself to be scared of his knowledge of your magic and what he might do about it. Having a home in this place seemed like something nice to have too. You hadn’t had a place to call home in any sense since you wound up in this place and it would be nice to have somewhere to even think of it like one at the very least.

After your tears were mostly done with falling, a yawn escaped you and you nuzzled into Sans’s hood more as you felt more of your weight falling against him. You were emotionally and physically exhausted and so even keeping yourself upright was a chore. It was so much easier to just let yourself sink into the skeleton you were already leaning against anyway. He stumbled, but his grip on you didn’t loosen as he caught himself and you before the pair of you could topple over. With only a huff of amusement coming from him, you felt yourself become lighter as your soul was wrapped in magic before arms moved around you to pick you up carefully. Another yawn left you and you nuzzled in even closer and curled up as best you could to his form. With heavy eyes you found yourself struggling to stay awake, but sleep was stronger than you. Sans’s aura of relaxation all the way down to his lazy sounding music didn’t help your case either.

 

Darkness swarmed around you. No, that’s wasn’t quite right as it wasn’t dark, there was just a lack of everything else which gave it the impression of being dark. You could see yourself perfectly fine as if you were standing out in the middle of a sunny afternoon day, but maybe not quite as bright given the lack of light sources. The air - it wasn’t that given that there was nothing beyond you here, but you had no other explanation for it - around you was heavy and thick. It felt oppressing as it pushed and pulled at your form. Your body felt like it was being crushed as your soul was being tugged in all directions. Panic settled in as you recognized the feeling and you instinctively reached out for your soul with your magic just like you’d done before and grabbed it as tightly as you could to force it to stay together. Just like before, the nothingness around you seemed afraid of your magic as it skittered away in what made it feel like a pile of quilts ways being pulled off your form. Of course, you could still see nothing as there was nothing around you which your mind could only comprehend as an impenetrable darkness as your mind was not meant to understand this place.

Rather than focus on the mind bending area around you, your eyes fell closed as you pushed your hands against your chest above where your soul would be summoned from. The weight helped calm the panic as you felt the pulse of magic keeping your soul together against the wishes of the vacuum around you. You were probably the only living thing, or at least the only thing with a proper soul in this space that seemed void of all else, so the comfort of being able to feel your soul and your magic was more than words could begin to describe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that chapter was a ride and then some. I actually hadn't planned for Sans to even touch her soul, but then the little bugger went off and did it anyway. Now that this chapter is up, any of you who were over on my blog within the past few days will understand why I asked [this question.](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/post/175250876342/how-about-a-random-question-as-im-finishing-up/) If you were over there yesterday you would also recognize that MC isn't the only one stargazing. [Though our glitchy friend definitely got the better show.](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/post/175280330962/wish-upon-a-star)  
> In other news, I've volunteered at a summer camp, and I'm not sure exactly how often I'll be there over the course of the summer, so I might not be able to update much at all. I feel kind of bad about that after how long it took to get this chapter out after I took a week off for my birthday and then spent a good portion of the next one distracted by the video games I got for my birthday keeping me from finishing this chapter sooner. To make up for it it's a bit longer than usual which I hope helps. I've also heard that I might have wifi at the camp, but it's apparently really spotty, so while I'll try to work on the story over the summer, we just have to cross our fingers and hope that I at least get something out at some point. I'll try to shoot for at least one chapter in each of the following months. I'm likely gone the next two weeks for sure though, so don't count on anything there too much during them. I may be able to hang out on tumblr with spotty wifi though anything I do will probably be kept short just in case.  
> If you want to check out [my tumblr](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/) then come on over. I'll be more than happy to answer questions or just chat.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Only those outside could truly comprehend.

As you stayed perfectly still, thoughts flowed into your mind and ebbed away again as you tried to process what was going on. How did you get here? Was this the place you were thinking it was? If it was then you might not be as alone as you hoped you were. Why here of all places anyway? You had an idea as to why, but you wanted to be wrong. You’d rather be alone in this void that was tied to all your mistakes than have anyone there with you. If there was anybody there then not only might they be suffering, but then you were the only one to escape it with one of your biggest mistakes.

Arms made of the same nothingness for the world around you, yet as solid as you were, wrapped around your form and softly tugged you against a body of the same consistency. Squirming in the hold, you turned to return the hug. “Papa.” Tears were bubbling up in your eyes as you let out your broken whisper. Of course you were in the Void - not much else it could be even if you had wished to have never come here even once.

“It has been a long time my little star,” he hummed in a slightly warped voice with his native tongue. His time spent here so long must be corrupting even that now. If only he’d been freed of this prison at the same time you were. It would have been nice if you’d been freed together, maybe you’d have stood a better chance in that twisted world. You wouldn’t have had a place to stay, but you wouldn’t have been alone at the very least. Definitely would have kept Digger away too since a human all by their lonesome was the perfect target for him, except that you hadn’t been alone exactly, but you were definitely scared of the monster you’d been with which had been enough for him too swoop in and ‘save’ you. “I hope you do not mind, but I have been trying to call your soul here for quite some time. I wished to speak again, and I highly doubt I will ever be able to call your full form to be present here. Your soul alone was quite difficult to get to. I believe we connected in your dreams last night, but the connection was not strong enough for your conscious mind to recognize it for what it was.”

You snuffled and tilted your head so your voice would carry more clearly. “You wan-wanted t’ talk? ‘Bout wha?” A gently cuff to your head had a fit of giggles mix in with the tears. It was nice to talk without feeling it in your throat, but it was even nicer to let yourself slip into a lazier pattern of speak just to tease your father who’d always despised when your elder brother would let himself speak in lazier ways quite frequently. “But seriously, Papa. What did you want to talk about?” While you were slightly surprised at how even your voice sounded, you also knew that it would sound like what you wanted it to project as of the nature of your form here currently being a manifestation of your soul. It explained why you felt more susceptible than before to the influence of the Void.

With a sigh, your father raised a hand to wipe at the tears falling from your father. “About the world we accidentally created, my star.” All you could give was a curious noise. “Not only have I been monitoring the wellbeing of yourself, your brothers, and those from our home from my position here, I have also been looking into the size of our mishap.” You could feel your stomach sinking at the thought that your father witnessed what occured to you. A horrified shiver accompanied the thoughts, though curiosity bubbled up inside you still as you thought of him being able to see your brothers and everyone else. You hoped they were all okay at least. You’d let your father continue his train of thought first. “It is… larger than we could have ever anticipated.”

The beat of silence felt heavy. “How big?” You were a bit scared no know how royally you’d messed up. While your father might argue otherwise, you’d been the one to amplify his call.

“I… cannot possibly answer this properly at the moment. It would simply be easier to show you, but I am not certain how long I will be able to hold you here if I were to attempt it. All I can truly tell you in confidence is that this is beyond the scope that I believe we should have had the power to influence even with the power of the Void at our disposal. Perhaps my estimates are off as the Void is not exactly predictable, but I wish to believe that they are accurate enough to count this as an anomaly.” You hummed in thought and pulled back to look your father in the eyes. A white drop of light in a dark hollow stared back, your father’s bad eye forever closed thanks to the physical warping he experienced from being trapped here. Gouges in his head you still weren’t sure were from his tumble or from the Void itself still stuck out to you as one pulled up from his bad eye and over his head while the other fell from his good eye and connected it to the corner of his mouth which was currently pulled into a thoughtful frown. It felt strange to see him like this. After all, Dr Gaster was many things, but a scarred Void blob was probably not on his list of things he, or most who knew him, would tell you.

“Well,” you spoke up quietly in the expansive silence that enveloped the two of you, “could you at least tell me how the others are doing?” You shifted a bit in his grip, wondering if your father would even pass that on to you as he tended to leave things he didn’t feel need explaining in the dark for you.

Instead of outright rejecting your question like you thought he might, he simply smiled and hugged you a little closer again. “They are all alright,” his voice was quiet as if saying it loudly might change what he’d just said. “They have set up their own places to stay while here and your brothers have been looking all over for us. They are actually quite close to where you’re staying, so you should attempt to get out more so that they might see you. It is likely they would come visit the door anyway to ask about you, but best to be proactive about this sort of thing.” You couldn’t stop your smile. The way he talked and the knowledge of your friends and family helped you feel less homesick than you realized you were.

“I’ll do my best, Papa. Then we can work on freeing you too.” You buried your face into the solid nothingness that currently made up his form.

He gave you a small squeeze. “Of that I have no doubt you will do. It seems time for us to part however as one of your roommates is trying to wake you - though they are going about it quite rudely if I say so. Despite the fact that you are used to living in a house of males, do take care with them as they all still have their unique quirks.” You rolled your eyes playfully at your father’s worrywart side coming out as you squeezed him back.

“I’ll be careful Papa. I know how to defend myself when I’m not being taken by surprise.” You could feel yourself fading from his arms and you sighed. “I love you.”

“Love you too, my little star.” Everything faded from your senses with those last words.

 

“wake th’ fuck up already.” The grumbling was the first thing you took note of as you sirred. The second thing was that you were on something soft, though blankets seemed to maybe be around your ankles, if that, which suggested they’d been tugged off by whoever was attempted to wake you. Third was the boney hands that were grabbed your shoulders with the fingers digging painfully. You might bruise from this, but that was the least of your worries as they began to drag you across the soft surface as magic grabbed your soul to help whoever was dragging you lift you somewhat as your upper body began to get suspended in the air. Yeah, this was not okay.

Twisting, you attempted both to get out of the grip of whoever had you along with pulling yourself into a position where you’d be able to properly land while minimizing damage. A strangled noise left whoever was holding you as their grip and the magic around you soul sputtered enough for you to drop a little. Unlike what you were expecting however, you never reached the ground as the one wielding the magic had better reflexes than you accounted for. You let your eyes shoot up to dart up to look at the one who was doing this. Red stared down with mock annoyance as you could see the surprise and curiosity flaring in his eyes lights. He let his face scrunch up as he looked down at you - though you weren’t sure if it was confusion or disgust that prompted this. “the hell, kitten?” All you could do was blink up at him at the pet name, sure that you’d heard it before, as he lowered you down to sit you on your bed before the magic dispelled. “first there’s magic flowin’ through ya when i touch ya, and then this? though i guess i can’t say much ‘bout the magic as i heard ya leave yer room last night an’ saw ya with sans out in th’ yard. so ‘s probably from ‘im still.” A faint twinge of relief at him explaining away the magic still buzzing through your system. You never did manage to use any last night, and so you still had that active buzz flowing through you.

Watching him carefully, you slowly slid to a spot where you could stand without hitting Red and let your weight shift onto your feet. Your gaze never left him and he raised a brow at your behaviour, but didn’t say anything. His gaze stayed on you as you wandered slowly over to your closet and shifted it open. Red’s tune was a bit overpowering, but you did your best to ignore the loud song as you picked out clothing. It likely influenced you though as you found yourself pulling out black yoga pants and a red shirt with a white skull and crossbones on it. Of course, with your black trench coat - as that leather crop top jacket was likely not making a comeback unless you were using it for dressing up -  joining that whenever you went outside, you’d fit right in with at least Red and Edge. They had a recognizable style, you’d give them that much.

You turned to look at Red to hope that your glance would have him leaving the room so you could change. He was sitting on the bed watching you which was creepy in its own right given you were nothing but a pet to him and he could still easily order you around. While you were better around monsters compared to when you first met, you were still too afraid of what would happen if you didn’t follow orders from your masters to chance it yet. Not even when it made you uncomfortable - like being ordered to speak when you weren’t ready or anything involving your soul. He caught your gaze and held it until you let your gaze drop from the staredown as you didn’t want to seem rude or too challenging. Sans likely hadn’t told anyone about your magic, or else Red was playing it off to see if he could pull the confession from you himself or something of the sort. Whatever his game was, you just wanted him out of the room for the moment. Thankfully you could hear him shuffling over to the door. He didn’t even say anything as he stepped out while closing the door behind him. It felt strange, but you weren’t complaining about the privacy you’d been allowed. Had he ordered you just to change in front of him you would have done so, even if he had other motives for it.

You hastened to change, sparing only a moment to glance at where Sans had left your boots and coat neatly placed next to each other by the door. The dirty clothes were tossed into the laundry basket and you exited the room. To no surprise, Red was leaning against the wall on the opposite side of the hall. He glanced up at you as you closed the door gently behind you. There was a beat of silence as he just looked you up and down and you found yourself shrinking a little under his gaze. That obviously didn’t go unnoticed with the way his eyes sparked in recognition, but once again he didn’t comment on it.

Deciding he likely wasn’t going to do anything, you turned and began to walk down the hall do you could go upstairs. You had no idea what the time even was, but it had to be pretty late for Red of all people to be waking you. He seemed less weary around you now, so you weren’t sure what to make of that given his first impression on you. While you didn’t know if he’d chance it with others still in the house, he did seem like he’d do something like what Digger and friends had done to you. Maybe not as bad, but you’d rather not chance it. So away from the skeleton that was probably a pervert you went.

Just as you had one foot placed on the bottom step to go up a weight pressed down on your soul to lock you in place. “nah, kitten. ya slept in late and boss said i had t’ keep an eye on ya since the other two need more rest than i do an’ the others are all supposed t’ be workin’.” Well that was unfortunate. Couldn’t fight your masters though, so you pulled your foot from the step despite all the weight you were feeling being shifted onto one foot being more difficult to balance without falling. You managed it fine from years of practise for tough situations like such. Can’t have a magic user unable to deal with conditions put on them via magic after all. That didn’t prepare you for gravity suddenly switching to pull you back into the room however. A squeak parted your lips as you reached out to grab at something that could keep you from tumbling too far in this new direction, and your fingers caught the doorframe for the stairs, but slid as they didn’t have a good enough hold. Red was laughing and you wanted so badly to let him know how you felt about him in this instant, but you were more focused on not getting hurt when you landed. With a small smirk you found the perfect way to do both as you pushed off the floor that was currently your wall in order to change your angle for a better landing, and to orient yourself perfectly to fling in Red’s direction. His sockets widened and he stumbled back a few steps while the magic around your soul fluttered with his surprise. Thanks to catching him off guard like that, you managed to actually grab him and make him stumble back even farther with your downward momentum. This, thankfully, made the changed gravity disappear and you were free to land gently on the actual floor rather than on the wall.

Feeling quite accomplished, you stood proudly next to the hunched over form of Red. Whild his position was a little worrying, he had brought the ordeal upon himself with that stunt. Even with that wheezing noise he was making. You paused and looked down at him. He had been in that explosion, so maybe you shouldn’t have jumped for him. Perhaps you should check on him and make sure he isn’t dying somehow because skeletons shouldn’t wheeze like that - they didn’t even have lungs after all.

Just as you were reaching a hand out to him worriedly - Edge would probably have your hide if you’d accidentally dusted his brother - Red stood up as he took in a deep breath. He wiped at ruby tears that were coalescing at the edges of his sockets. When he caught your gaze he grinned widely while you realized the wheezing noise had been him laughing. He’d found that funny? You didn’t understand, but if it kept him from punishing you then you couldn’t really complain either. “damn kitten, ya’ve got quite the set o’ claws on ya. jus’ full of surprises, ain’t ya?” He gave your head a few pats despite the fact that you were taller than him by a bit which made the action a bit awkward. You let him have his fun though. It was all harmless for now it seemed. “c’mon. i’ve got a new movie i wanna watch and yer joining me.” What could go wrong?

_ Everything. _ Everything went wrong and you refused to lift your head from where you’d buried them in the blankets as Red laughed at the screaming figures on scream. You should have expected this, but you forgot that violence had its own whole genre of movies or whatever this was. Red had mentioned something about a slasher before you started, but you’d thought it could have been something very different with your optimism, but apparently not. It was gross and awful and you were hating every second of it. It was actually making you nauseous just to hear them like this, and looking made it all worse. How Red was laughing at it, you had no idea. Something must definitely be wrong with his head if he was laughing at their misery and pointing out things the killer was doing wrong and how they could be more efficient.

A high pitched scream ended by a gurgling, sputtering, choking noise pushed you off the couch and running towards the stairs. You had to get away from the movie for a little bit, and maybe run to the bathroom in the event your stomach finally gave out. Cries of pain that made your soul twist uncomfortably followed you up the stairs as you tried to get as much distance between you and that movie for the time being. You needed the peaceful atmosphere of the house to calm you from that bloodbath. While you knew it was to be entertainment of some kind and that it was all an act, it felt too real to you. It was a recording of people playing their parts, but sitting by idling while people suffered like that didn’t sit well with you. You couldn’t just let everyone around you dust without attempting to help them, so this was like torture to you. How could anyone find enjoyment in that? You just couldn’t understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I live! After being lost in a wifi-less purgatory for a few weeks and then forgetting I was getting dragged along on another camping trip when I got back, I think the fact that I managed to get anything out this month is a miracle, though it's definitely not as much as I wanted to write for this chapter. So, crazy plot stuff this chapter and some crazy plot stuff is planned for the next chapter too since I couldn't get it into this chapter with how I'm writing at the moment. I'm a bit out of my writing habits and need to get back into it, so hopefully this can tide you all over for now.  
> If you want more throughout the week and have prompts, or questions, or just plain want to say hi, then go ahead and come on over to [my tumblr](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/) where I haven't done anything since getting back so far, but am definitely more than up for some fun times with all of you. Want an idea of how big things are before they get mentioned more in the story, or maybe a question about this big world and how it works? I'll do my best to answer without too many spoilers.  
> Pretty sure most of you expected this reveal in some form, but I did write a bit for it that's over on my tumblr that you can always check out too. Right at [this link](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/post/172025343627/dark) here.  
> Until next time guys!~ (Which hopefully means next week if I can get into the swing of things again.)


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dead silence.

Toilets made surprisingly nice seats when you put the lids down. Maybe you’d been in here for too long, but you couldn’t tell given the lack of clock and that the light outside had remained pretty steady which you would assume would mean that it hasn’t been long, but the sun was weird and you couldn’t be sure. On the plus side you were doing much better now as long as you kept your thoughts away from the gore of the movie because that was just disturbing on so many levels and made your skin crawl.

Sighing, you stood slowly. The bathrooms were some of the quiet spots in the house and as much as you enjoyed the privacy they afforded, you were always unnerved by the silence. It never felt right after being so used to some sort of constant noise around you be it one long droning note or a complex melody. You didn’t bother putting the lid back up as you wandered out the door. You’d probably sooner be using as a chair again rather than its intended purpose anyway. Especially if Red was still watching that movie since you were probably expected to join him again. A shudder shook your soul as you wandered slowly into the hallway. There was no rush to get back to that movie.

Closing your eyes with one hand on the wall to make sure you didn’t stray too far, you just wanted to the lingering sounds that filled the space to help prepare you for that movie again while one of your hands wandered up to where your necklace should be. You nearly tripped as you ripped your hand from your chest to push it out to help you catch your balance. With wide eyes, you strained your ears. There was no music. Where was the music? Panic clawed at your soul as you looked around you to see if you could find something that might have caused this lack of noise. That would be easier if you knew what could cause this, but all you knew about the lack of music is that the music was tied to magic and how you perceived it somehow. There wasn’t really much you knew about the connection because it was always weird to talk about hearing music constantly when around others who never seemed to hear the tunes. Maybe you were temporarily deaf or just weren’t close enough to anybody? Proximity had never mattered before, but it was best to check all possible theories to come up with the best answer you could along with a basis from which you could attempt to find solutions.

As you paced around the main floor, ducking into all the different room as you went, you tried to think over all of the occurances of silence that you could recall. The bathrooms here, the room you shared with your one brother when you were in there alone, the time you fell off the side of that one rock wall because the ledge under one of your feet had crumbled beneath despite how stable it had been before that, that one time you’d almost drowned. Actually, you were pretty sure there’d been a few panicky notes when you’d fallen off that cliff, and the time you almost drowned could be chalked up to being near death. You were pretty sure you weren’t dying now and you saw no other correlation between any of the occurances you could think of. You were probably missing a lot, but what really mattered now anyway was figuring out if there was any music anywhere or if you’d somehow lost your ability or if something else was afoot here.

In the living room, Stretch was, well, stretched out across the couch with Sans sitting on the opposite end on his legs. Kind of like Sans had come in and had wanted to sit down, only for them both to be too tired or lazy to deal with Stretch’s legs already being there, so they just went with this solution instead. You probably would have smiled at it being endearing were you not having a small crisis at the moment. Both of them moved their attention to you as you paced to over by the piano and then towards where they were watching tv together. The television was still making noise, so it wasn’t possibly that you were deaf suddenly and out of nowhere. Could never be sure without confirmation though as anything was truly possible at any given moment technically.

“what’s up bud?” Not expecting to be addressed, you jumped as you twirled on your feet to face the two skeletons on the couch. “hey, i’m just trying to throw you a bone there. no reason to jump out of our skin.” You mouth quirked as Sans spouted out puns and winked in your direction. This was a much nicer atmosphere than what was between you before last night. Stretch was looking between the two of you with a raised brow, but said nothing as he seemed content at this development in the relationship the two of you had. You waved off Sans’s question along with any concerns with a gentle motion, still cautious that you didn’t want to upset them despite knowing it was likely hard to do so.

Turning to face the door, you paused as your gaze landed on the tv. Shivers ran up your spine and shook your soul as you looked over the sight of blue strings with handmade puppet hanging from them as the picture in the corner of the screen to represent what the newscaster was talking about. “Another string of murders have gotten under the belt of the most well established serial killer known to monsterkind. Three humans dead and a monster nearly so when found early this morning outside their place of work downtown. While they’re being kept stable with healing magic for the time being, it’s unclear if they’ll be able to pull through. Police have confirmed this to be the work of the Puppeteer due to the usual calling cards, but state that there are clear signs of a struggle from more than just the victims we’ve talked about. Could this be evidence that the vigilantes, talked about by the few other survivors of the Puppeteer’s attacks supposedly thanks to one or both being present, were present at this fight? Police will confirm nothing about this, but ask anyone with information to step forward. As always, we’d like to warn citizens of the danger that the Puppeteer poses and remind you all that they are highly dangerous. Do not approach if you believe you’ve found them and contact authorities immediately instead.” Your whole body seemed to process that it wasn’t in current danger and you quickly walked out of the room with your head down even as you vaguely heard confused and worried voices calling after you. It wasn’t like you could talk to them anyway, and especially not about this. What would they do if they knew this likely all tied back to your mistakes? Sans already had reason to kill you at a moment’s notice, and you really didn’t want to add to that. How would you explain this to them anyway? There was no possible way you could think of that wouldn’t make you seem downright crazy on a good day.

With this new information and there still being a lack of music permeating the world around you, you felt more off kilter than you’d felt in a long time. So, thinking of the main floor as a lost cause and not wanting to invade the privacy of the others by going into their rooms upstairs, you stumbled your way downstairs once more. Red barely acknowledged you beyond a grunt when he first saw you. That was fine by you as without the magic his movie felt much louder and overwhelming than it was before. Him not raising a fuss let you slip on past him and down the hall to your room, pausing only to try to listen into the other rooms down here without going in. Nothing. There was nothing still and it was eating away at your soul and agitating your magic that felt ready to leap from your skin at a moment’s notice. Your room wasn’t any better, so there was only one other place you could think to check before giving up and curling in a ball somewhere to try and keep your magic from escaping and giving yourself away too much. Putting on your boots and grabbing your jacket just in case, you began to hurry back upstairs. You tripped over your own feet as you were nearing the stairs, which quickly caught Red’s attention. His gaze crawled along your back, but you did your best to ignore it. Instead, you simply righted yourself and took off for the steps again. Behind you, the sounds of the movie abruptly stopped and it kind of sounded like Red was making to follow you. As long as those tortured sounds didn’t continue, you were fine with that.

A loud knock echoed through the house and seemed to silence any other noise you heard once your reached the main floor. That was… odd and uncomfortable. The silence reigned for another moment before another knock just like the first one came once more. It was then you noticed the music was back, but not in a way you would have liked. A low, quiet note was in a constant whining that was slowly building up and up. It was like when you were watching that movie with Red earlier and it was leading up to the killer appearing as it was trying to cause tension. Your stomach twisted and you were suddenly glad you hadn’t had anything to eat yet today. With your soul being squeezed by panic and your heart hammering in your chest, you can’t imagine that you’d be able to keep it down right now. This wasn’t good. You had no idea what was going on, but whatever was behind that door wasn’t good. Not wanting to be in the direct line of sight once whatever was out there got in, you quickly scooted off so you could easily get to the back door if you needed that escape while you could also peak around the corner to watch the front door which was a lot more intimidating right now.

Sans shuffled into view despite the fact that he was the one that was supposed to be having the most bedrest out of the three right now and you felt the unease in your soul grow. What if whoever was out there hurt him? It only grew with the knock coming a third time. Sans simply grinned as he looked at the door. “who’s there?” Of course he’d respond with that. He wasn’t aware of the music, so he wasn’t on edge about everything like you were. He was acting like normal, puns and all.

“OPEN UP THIS DOOR IMMEDIATELY IN THE NAME OF THE CROWNS!!” That sounded kind of like Razz, but that couldn’t be right as he had a key and if he wanted in then he could just use it. He probably also wouldn’t be yelling so loudly you could hear him clearly from across the house and through a door. There was also more authority behind this voice than Razz usually spoke with at home. The way Sans’s face dropped into a momentary scowl didn’t bolster confidence in what was going on being good, either. “IF YOU DO NOT COMPLY I  _ WILL _ BREAK DOWN THIS DOOR.”

Sans’s stance was now slightly more rigid as you watched a confused looking Red enter the hallway as well. “What are you doing here, Trife?” A shiver crawled up your spine at Sans’s serious voice coming out to join this party of things you didn’t understand, but very much weren’t enjoying at the moment. His tone caught Red’s attention because if Red had been looking for you, he was now focusing on Sans and the front door. The front door that Sans was opening. You took a deep breath to try and calm your racing heart and frantic soul.

“WE ARE HERE TO COLLECT THE HUMAN FROM THIS PREMISES AS WE’VE BEEN TIPPED OFF TO THE FACT THAT THEY MIGHT POSSESS MAGIC AND SO AS IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAW WE MUST ASCERTAIN WHETHER THIS IS TRUE OR NOT. YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS OF COURSE, SO I ASK THAT YOU COMPLY INSTEAD OF BEING A PROBLEM FOR ME LIKE YOU SEEM TO ENJOY.” While you couldn’t see much from where you were with Red and Sans both somewhat in your view of what was beyond the front door, you could still make out what appeared to be another skeleton. They did remind you of Razz still, but if Razz wore purple maybe instead. It was hard to make out much more than that beyond the purple bandana being a big difference, but the guard uniform didn’t help with making differences easily known. That of course, wasn’t the important part here. They knew you were here and they suspected your magic. It was probably from Digger. You wouldn’t put it past that mangy mutt to throw you under the bus if it got him something. As much as acting innocent would be something you’d love to do, you couldn’t stick around for this. Your magic was still crawling all through you barely kept in check, so they’d know with ease that you had magic and you’d likely be taken to be killed if you weren’t killed on the spot.

Deciding you’d had enough idling around, you turned and hurried over to the back door. That horror movie music was still playing with a quick beat to it that basically lent itself to your quick escape. Maybe if you got away it’d change to be more peaceful. How far was far enough though? Likely out of the yard and far away. That meant you had to run away. Your stomach twisted at the thought and your soul cried. Not only were you scared of what the skeletons would think, you also wanted to stay at this place you’d only started to think of as a home starting last night. If you wanted to live and find your brothers, then you’d have to do it. Your conversation with your father from last night was still clear in your mind. They were close, so perhaps you could find them. How close they were, you had no idea, but you’d find each other, you were sure of it.

While distracted by these thoughts, you hadn’t noticed that there was somebody coming to the back door, and thus you crashed right into them. You head snapped back only for your tensed muscles to relax a little as you pulled back from Blue. You hadn’t even known he was home, but you supposed it made sense since somebody had to look after the skeletons who were staying home. Why he was out here you had no idea, and now you’d never know. The thought sent a small pang of pain into your soul and you felt tears boiling up inside you. Especially as he looked at you with this lost expression as he must have felt your magic given you’d been pressed right against him thanks to your lack of awareness. Well, if he was already aware of the magic in your system, then it didn’t matter if you touched him again. So you did. You launched forward and hugged him with everything you had thanks to the turmoil in your soul. The guilt roiled without you, but you pushed it away as you tried to send apologetic feelings at Blue. Let him know through your magic that you were sorry for the trouble you’d no doubt caused and for what you were about to do.

It felt too soon as you pulled back once more. Blue was staring at you with large sockets that didn’t seem to quite comprehend what was going on. The sight broke your heart, but you had to go. If you didn’t then you’d be found and killed and it was probably better for some of the skeletons from your house at least for you to have run away and have an uncertain fate rather than knowing you’re dead. Hopefully it was at least easier on Blue and Papyrus because they didn’t deserve to know somebody they spent that much effort into caring for was killed. They didn’t deserve that kind of loss in their life. Before that sad gaze could keep you trapped any longer, you lowered your head and ran into the yard. “WAIT!” Blue called out after you, but you barely missed a step.

You called upon your magic as you pulled your soul from how you’d messily put it away last night. Eager to finally be used, magic surged around you as you raised your head to look in front of you once more. The fence was getting closer with each step you ran, but this should make your escape a bit easier. Calling upon the memory, a quick flash had you feeling the ground under you vanish before you were quickly falling a small distance onto the top of the fence. Your balance at the sudden change in stance you needed to adopt wasn’t phenomenal, and you hadn’t teleported yourself in so long either. All things considered, you didn’t pretty well as you were quick to regain your balance while going still on the fence. You spared just a glance into the yard you’d had some fun memories in as the thought of never seeing it sent a lance right into your heart. Blue was standing out on the grass not too far from the house as he stared with wide eyes. You couldn’t bare to look much longer and you stood and began to hurry your way down the top board of the wooden fence that seemed to stretch all the way along this row of houses. You did so none top soon as well it seemed as the door crashed open behind you and shouts could be heard. That voice that sounded like Razz’s, but wasn’t quite screeched out something, but you paid it to mind. All that mattered now was losing the guards and then finding your brothers. The house was just another thing to be part of your past, and it didn’t matter anymore. Not even if the tears that were fighting to obscure your vision protested this fact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was a fun chapter to write. Man, you guys don't even know how long I've been waiting to write this. I have to go figure out some details for the next chapter still since I've made a bit of change of plans as to what comes next exactly, but be prepared for that nonetheless. Wish our little pet luck guys, because she's probably going to need all that she can get.  
> In the meantime, a short that ties into this chapter slightly should be up sometime within the next few days over on [my tumblr](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/) hopefully. So you can check that out, or just come on over and scream at me. Honestly, I won't even be mad because I'm already anticipating screaming from one of my friends who reads this story once she reads it.  
> Until next time, guys. Hope you all have a great week. (Better than MC's at least.)


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A stellar performance.

The guards were persistent, you’d give them that, but you knew how to lose pretty determined trackers. You’d trained for it what felt like an eternity ago when your biggest problems were trivial matters compared to what you were used to by now after being in this place for so long. While the residential area had been harder to shake them in, once you got to an area with shops and taller buildings with flat roofs they had instantly become your best escape mechanism. You’d teleport up there and jump from one to another for a while until you managed to lose the ones chasing you on the ground. Unfortunately there was a pair of skeletons among the crew, and the one brother was teleporting the pair as close to previous locations from before the jumps as possible. You’d done your best to minimize the line of sight possible to make this harder, but when both parties could teleport, the matter of magic stores was a larger stake in this chase than the actual running. While you may have stamina in the field of using magic, and larger stores of power, your physical nature as a human made it more difficult to absorb magic from the air around you, and your body didn’t naturally produce enough agic to sustain this long term. The skeletons were easily going to beat you in this regard, so you had to find some other way to give yourself an advantage.

Green caught the corner of your eye and a smirk grew on your face as you glanced in the direction. A park with a forested section. While you may not recognize the place, it’d be easy to make them lose sight of you and you could hang low for a while before blending in with the rest of the humans and monsters who had to be about at this hour. While it was a shot in the dark since you didn’t know how capable they were with magic, it was better than this rooftop chase whose end you could easily predict. This gave you a chance and a spark of hope, so you’d just have to take it and follow it to the best of your abilities. All you really needed was a break long enough to hopefully make them think you’d moved on already and then leave themselves. As long as they didn’t try combing the area or bring any guards with a heightened sense of smell you should be fine.

The next time it was possible, you deviated from the path you’d been vaguely going along to drop down into an alley while using magic to help you avoid injuries from the landing. Truly satisfying, the noise of confused and upset skeletons echoed from somewhere above you. They’d momentarily lost you, but it likely wouldn’t be long until they caught sight of you once again. Maybe you could put more space between you and them if you tried to blend in with those out walking around at this time. While you couldn’t be sure, they hadn’t seen your face yet. this meant you should be able to blend in without too much trouble. You just had to make yourself a bit less recognizable. It was at this moment you lamented the lack of hood this jacket had, but maybe messing up your hair could throw them off a bit. Not much, but even just a few seconds could make a big difference for your escape. As a percaution, you also tucked your soul away from easy viewing once more. Luckily the chase had burned out a lot of excess magic so it no longer ran under your skin where anyone with the ability to perceive magic would notice it instantly.

Just as you were taking a step out of the alley, somebody smaller than you tripped over your foot. They fell to the concrete off to your left and you stumbled having not been prepared for anyone to hit you with such force. It seemed like they might’ve been running before the collision. You were quick to recover, you nerves and reflexes working overtime as you spun to look at the other body. It was just your surprise to see a young goat monster pushing themselves into a sitting position while rubbing their snout. Of course you cared about your own safety, but you couldn’t just leave a possibly injured child on the side of the road like that. So without too much thought into the whole ordeal, you crouched next to the young monster. They had to be young as they wore a sweater that was striped blue and yellow, though as you got to their level you also noticed a large blue cartoon star on the front of the sweater. It was quite cute.

The kid noticed you and grinned up despite the slight discolouration you could see on their snout. “Sorry about that. I wasn’t really looking where I was going because I was playing tag.” They attempted to wave off your hands, but you just frowned at the child before reaching out a hand to at least offer them some help up. It seemed like they understood that they couldn’t dissuade you from helping completely as they took your hand and let you haul them up onto their feet. “Thanks for that. I hope I’m not keeping you from what you’re supposed to be doing.” The child’s midnight blue eyes looked you over curiously. You probably didn’t look like much of a worker in your attire, but you had no marking symbols of being a pet, nor was there any monster around for you either. This was probably really suspicious now that you thought about it, but it was too late for that now.

Pattering of quick feet saved you as the child’s attention was turned to somebody coming up behind you. You turned to look as well, letting your hand stay locked with the child’s as they didn’t seem like they wanted to let go yet. Of course this left you turning a bit strangely with your arm across your body, but it wasn’t like that was the end of the world. Surprise washed over you as a child that reminded you of Rah stood there. Their eyes were focused on the child holding your hand, so that gave you a free moment to take in their appearance without seeming rude. Their eyes were a vibrant red and they wore a yellow sweater that seemed a size too big for them with two dark blue stripes around their middle. Both housed bright yellow constellation patterns you didn’t recognize, but the larger top stripe had more complex designs than the smaller one. Constellation patterns were also on the navy blue leggings they worse under baggy shorts of the same base colour. They even had dark suspenders with little yellow four pointed stars to hold them to their shorts. It was quite a cute little space theme that matched the goat child quite well. This must be who the young monster was playing tag with. The human child then looked up at you and seemed surprised to see you. All you could do was smile gently at them. The child looked between you and the young goat before deciding to address the goat instead. “Mom’s going to be upset when she sees.”

An awkward bleat came from the monster. “I didn’t run ahead that far, did I?” Instead of gracing the other with a proper response, the red eyed child rolled those bright eyes and walked closer. They tapped a finger against the faintly discoloured spot on the snout which only elicited a whine from the monster child. On instinct you pulled the young monster a little closer in response to their pained noise. You’d always been protective over the children around you and hated seeing them in pain which would always end up happening somehow thanks to children tripping or finding less than ideal places to play - not like you’d been much better as a child yourself really.

“Jet!” a worried voice called out from the same direction the human child had come from. The monster child squirmed in your grip and looked a little guilty as there was an amused expression on the human’s face. So the voice was likely calling for the child you still held on to. You let your gaze wander in the direction the voice had come from only to pause at the much larger goat monster coming your way. A beautiful blue dress that was dark like the night sky which had constellations on the skirt and fluffy gold speckled white trim at the bottom of the skirt and sleeves. The top was that same dark blue, but had golden pinstripes on it - which confused you, but you could only guess that it was the pinstripes must have a different significance from normal stripes to this group clad in space themed attire. A white apron with yellow stitching and a crest that vaguely reminded you of the delta rune but changed to fit a space theme just like the rest of their outfits. There was also a human child holding the new monster’s hand who looked a lot like Kris, but their eyes were more closed like Rah’s. They wore a royal blue sweater with vibrant yellow stripes and yellow shorts to match. They had suspenders which matched the other space themed human as well. Possibly some form of identifying them as pets for this family. “My child, what did I tell you about running off so far ahead? What if you’d gotten lost or- Oh stars! You’re hurt!” The tall goat monster stopped in front of you to fret over the child in your arms.

“Mommmm…” Jet whined out. You found yourself smiling at the interaction as you loosened your grip so it was only the young monster who was keeping the two of you together. “The change in gravity can’t stop a prince!” That brought a soft chuckle from the older monster as she shook her head. A curious feeling wormed into your soul at Jet mentioning he was a prince, but you let yourself stay as silent and still as ever. Even if his mention of a change in gravity was also strange and feeding that curious worm, you were still much more interested in just listening to the two going back and forth with their banter. It kind of reminded you of your one brother arguing with your father. It was nice. Though having the eyes of the two human children on you was a bit unnerving.

After a long moment, the mother finally seemed to notice you. “Oh! I’m sorry I did not greet you sooner. I am Venus, Queen of the Outertale kingdom. These are my children, Jet, Pak, and Lune.” She gestured first to the child still clinging to you whose name you already knew followed by the one who had shown up before her, and then the one that was hanging near her. She paused. “Do you even understand what I’m saying? Oh dear, I’m just being a silly old lady whose talking to just about everyone and everything again…” You smiled as she put a hand up to her mouth as if trying to muffle her words while she clearly wasn’t putting any effort to actually muffle them. You nodded as she looked curiously at you and that caused her to smile brightly. “Can you speak as well?” There was a hint of excitement about her. While you nodded again, you shifted uncomfortably as you weren’t exactly ready to just go talking to every monster around you as then you were some object of value rather than a living being of any kind. Not like it mattered much either way as you were still kind of an object to be bought and sold, but you felt a bit better when others weren’t focusing on such a small mundane to place all your worth on.

Probably sensing your discomfort, Jet turned and gave you a bright smile as he squeezed your hand. “You don’t have to do anything you’re super uncomfortable with.” Pak narrowed their gaze at you behind Jet’s back. Seems they didn’t trust you yet, or didn’t like the attention you were getting from their ‘sibling.’

“Where is your monster? Or monsters I suppose is likely as well.” Queen Venus was on the mark for questions to ask. Unfortunately you couldn’t exactly answer her, so you looked off to the side instead. “Are you lost, perhaps?” You blinked as you turned to look back at her. It darted off to your surroundings for a moment before you slowly nodded. Technically you were lost as you didn’t know the area. “Well them I’m sure your monster wouldn’t mind if you came with us until we can return you to them.” This could be good for you. If a royal was protecting you then you could possibly be safe from the guard. However, she might very quickly turn you over to them as well if she found out about your magic. You’d need to keep that under tight lock and key.

Seeming excited about the prospect of having another human around, Jet was quick to be on the move again while tugging you along behind him. “Come on! We’re going to the park!” A sigh came from Venus behind you, and you could hear a matching one from Pak. Lune was quiet, though they attitude reminded you of Rah, so you couldn’t say you were too surprised. While you did your best to keep Jet slower so he couldn’t run off and trip over anyone else like he’d done with you, you didn’t fight his pulling either. It was nice to still be around a monster with high energy levels after leaving the skeleton household.

A feeling of unease crawled up your spine and you were quick to sidestep while pulling Jet in front of you completely as to protect him. The prince could barely begin a confused noise when a barrage of bones shot past the two of you in the place where you’d been standing not long before, vanishing quickly after. An alarmed yelp left your mouth while you curled protectively around the young monster as a burning sensation registered from your right ear. One of your hands pulled away from the now terrified monster to figure out what the sensation was coming from only to instantly be wetted as soon as you touched near where it burned the worst. Pulling your hand back, all you could do was stare blankly at the blood on your fingers. More magic attacks were coming your way and you quickly pushed Jet away from you while still keeping him ahead of you so he could still be protected from this next volley. The numbness from shock giving you the boost you needed to have the rational thought to do so. The bones that would hit you would likely skewer right through you, so holding him close would put him at risk of getting impaled by the same bones that hit you. Besides, you were the target so he’d be safer away from you than hugged to your form. So you curled in on yourself with one hand over your ear and the other on your chest over where your soul would come from if called. You could easily protect yourself, but you didn’t want to risk Jet in the process. Instead you closed your eyes and braced yourself.

The impact you were waiting for never came, but rather a large warmth along your back. Still, you stayed still just in case. There was bickering in upset tones as the magic died down, yet you held fast still. If you were a blockade to protect Jet at the cost of your life, then you were just one more human down, even if you’d die with many, many regrets.

Small hands, both furry and human found their way onto you, and you slowly allowed opened your eyes. The wave of relief at seeing Jet, Pak, and Lune all in front of you and safe hit you hard. That mixed with the amount of magic you’d expended earlier and the adrenaline leaving you caused your head to feel light, or maybe that was the blood you were losing from your ear. Were ears supposed to bleed this much? You wobbled as your vision grew a bit blurry. Standing right now didn’t feel safe, so you let yourself sink to your knees, much to the worried tones of the three in front of you. Words were kind of blurry too at the moment. Probably the shock still in your system.

A warm flame of healing magic filled you and you leaned into the caster. A soft embrace lulled you to a sense of security though a dull protest about getting blood on their clothes trickled into your mind. The warmth filled you with energy and helped clear your senses, though your right aer still felt slightly clogged. “Sunna is under my protection and if you truly wish to continue bothering us, then I’m sure King Ash of your Swapfell kingdom would love to hear about this misdemeanor over tea. So I’ll as once more, Trife, Graze, leave us be.” You glanced over at the skeletons Venus was admonishing.

The smaller skeleton - who much be Trife as you remember hearing him be addressed by Sans back at the house - looked unsure of his next move with a scowl resting on his face that was probably curbed back from its usual position thanks to the presence of royalty. His armour was that of the guard and their symbol was emblazoned upon the metal of the chest piece itself. He wore a rich purple bandana around his neck much like how Razz and Blue had their own, and the cloth of the gauntlets were a matching in tone. The taller one - Graze by process of elimination - wore a dull jam coloured hoodie that reminded you of Sans’s beyond being much too big for said smaller skeleton and the colours. Where there was blue on Sans’s that dull purple was on this one, and the light grey of the hood was replaced with a dark grey, almost black, shade here as well. His attire kept with that lazy appearance even down the his socks and sandals. Your eyes quickly darted back up to look at the glare hidden behind a smug smirk that was being sent your way from the taller one. Figuring that looking at Trife wasn’t going to be much better, you let your eyes wander over to the kids again. Jet and Lune held varying levels of worry as they looked at you, to which you gave them a reassuring smile to let them know you were okay. Even as flames from Venus’s hands licked at your right ear and the surrounding area of your head, you didn’t flinch as you focused on Pak. The child was glaring right back at the skeletons who’d attacked you and Jet. You had a feeling they were glaring more on Jet’s behalf than yours, but an amused smile rested gently on your face at the thought of such a protective human ‘sibling’ as they were as close as humans and monsters could ever get here.

“FINE. I WILL LEAVE YOU BE AS I SUPPOSE I WILL HAVE TO REPORT THIS.” With that the two skeletons turned and left without sparing a glance back at you and the others from what you could see from your own glances after them.

Venus helped you stand once they had rounded a corner out of sight. Aware of flames licking around your hand, you turned your eyes down to where she help it and watched as the flames cleaned away the blood that had gotten on it. You blinked before looking back up at the starry queen’s face. “We can’t very well have a bloody human running around causing panic, now can we? Especially not after you pulled off such a selfless act for my son.” She smiled down at you. Returning the gesture, you startled as another hand grabbed your other one. Jet beamed up at you from that side when you turned to look.

 

A gentle breeze brought the sound of rustling leaves through the air as you trailed along behind Venus. The kids darted off to reach some play structures built not far from the path up ahead, so you were left in your thoughts for now. Today has been wild. First you had that dream or communication, or whatever you should call it, with your father who was trapped in the void who said things about mistakes being bigger than anyone could properly realize or understand. As if that hadn’t been enough, then you’d been woken up to being dragged out of your bed by Red who then subjected you to an awful movie which thankfully you didn’t eat before - though your stomach was going to start complaining soon enough which would be a problem future you could deal with. Then came Trife and Graze along with those other guards, and you’d run from the house you’d just started to consider a home as of last night, and then you got attacked by them after things had started looking up, but you were protected by royalty of some kingdom from somewhere that obviously liked the stars enough to have a whole motif based around them. Which reminded you that Venus had called you ‘Sunna’ when admonishing the skeletons. What kind of name was that? Where had it come from? Obviously she must have made it up on the spot, but why refer to you by a name at all? Was it to make it seem like she knew you better? That was likely as it would then give the skeletons less grounds on which to accuse her of not knowing you in that very moment with the limited information they likely had about you beyond the fact that you looked like the one they had been chasing. Your decision not to use magic to protect yourself probably helped throw them off as well as they’d seen you use magic before then so they would believe you’d use it to protect yourself no matter what. They weren’t prepared to deal with somebody whose soul trait was kindness leaning towards patience it seemed.

“HUMAN?” You froze at the familiar voice as all your thoughts screeched to a halt. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT HERE WITH HER MAJESTY QUEEN VENUS?” That had Venus stopping ahead of you herself as she turned to look at the one who’d called after the two of you. Slowly, you spun to face Edge yourself. He was quickly coming close and you were internally letting out a string of every bad word you knew - most of which came from listening to Red talk whenever you were around him. Luckily he seemed more perplexed than angry, so he probably hadn’t heard what had happened yet. Probably thanks in part to the fact that he was on duty for the guard right now if his armour was anything to go by.

“I was not aware this was your human, sir Edge.” He had a fancy title? You looked back and forth between the two monsters. They certainly knew each other in some capacity.

Edge nodded at the regal monster. “I TOLD RED TO WATCH AFTER HER, BUT I SUPPOSE THEY MUST HAVE BEEN SEPARATED SOMEHOW.” The glance he gave you sent a chill through your soul as it looked like he didn’t believe Red would just get easily separated from you. Not like that made Red stop you from leaving his side in the house earlier when you left for the bathroom.

“Well perhaps it had something with the fact that Trife and Graze attacked her not long after myself and the children met up with her.” Edge’s look darkened slightly and you felt your shoulders inching up a little at that. Was he going to think your provoked them?

Instead of lashing out or anything of the sort, he turned his attention completely towards Venus and gave a salute and a small bow. “APOLOGIES OVER THE TROUBLES YOU’VE HAD TO DEAL WITH WHILE TAKING CARE OF MY HUMAN. I WILL TAKE THEM OFF YOUR HANDS NOW AS I’M SURE YOU ALREADY HAVE YOUR HANDS FULL WITH YOUR CHILDREN.” He stood straight and put a hand on your shoulder, putting a gentle pressure on your shoulder to encourage you to turn as well. Once you’d done what he wanted, he let his thumb rub your shoulder just out of the queen’s sight in a comforting way. You bowed your head to the royal monster in thanks to her for what she’d done for you.

“I leave her in your hands. I hope I haven’t caused you too much trouble though as I did refer to her by a name that obviously must not be her own as she must not be from my kingdom.” She smiled at the two of you and gave a small wave. “Take care you two.” She did not wait for a response before quickly turning and looking for where the three kids had run off to so she could go watch them.

With a huff, Edge turned and began to walk down the path back the way you’d both come from. You quickly turned to follow with your head down. Were you going to be going home so soon? What if Trife and Graze came back looking to see if you’d returned? Any guards really. Would Edge and the others from your home who worked with the guard be forced to take you when it’s found out you’re back there again? You really didn’t want any of them to have to do that, but it was known that you had magic and it would obviously change the family dynamic. Sans wouldn’t change all that much and would probably fight to keep his promise to protect you, but when pitted against the world, protecting one person that everyone else wanted dead was no easy feat. Especially in a world this big.

A loud grumble came from your stomach as you were walking along that had Edge falter in his confident strides. “HUMAN, HAVE YOU EATEN YET TODAY?” He looked at you over his shoulder. You quickly shook your head with an embarrassed flush across your face. A curse was mumbled under Edge’s breath that you couldn’t make out beyond the tone he used as he quickly turned to look at the part around the two of you. He quickly walked you over to a bench and directed you to sit. “Stay here. I’m going to get us both something to eat and then I’m going to call Blue to come pick you up before I return to my patrols of the area.” A nod quickly left you as you placed your hands firmly in your lap as if that was locking you in place. Food and home sounded good. Even if that meant you’d have to face Blue after obviously using magic in front of him while not knowing how he’d react. Today was a mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter is interesting as it went multiple different ideas before becoming this version with those from Outertale coming in for a little while. The original idea didn't even have the park in it at all. This mess isn't over yet. After all, since when has anything ever been this simple?  
> In case you missed it, over on tumblr I put a short relating to the snippet from news in the last chapter. You can read that [here](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/post/176634411702/dark-and-stormless-night) if you want to check that out.  
> As always, see you all next time.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day drags on.

Today was officially the longest day of your life. First the mess that was only this morning, and then just when you thought you’d caught a break on that park bench, a whole new mess started up. Edge had still been gone and you were relaxing when you’d suddenly been grabbed by some patrolling guard who’d questioned you about why you weren’t working. That lead to them noticing a lack of identification on you, and they’d assumed you were a stray or runaway worker. You couldn’t exactly remember how they worded it because you’d been panicking and trying to think of how to get out of the situation or at least run to Edge for protection or run away to safety of some other place instead. Of course you didn’t get the chance before they were dragging you off to a guard station where you were sitting now.

You hadn’t heard much from the guards as they came in and out of the room you were sitting in alone for the most part. Apparently this was the room for ‘problem’ humans. Thankfully it didn’t seem like anyone had connected you to the wizard that had run away from the other guards yet. As long as none of those guards saw you, you were probably going to be fine. Oddly enough, there’d been no checks about you being a runaway pet. Everyone had just been assuming that you’d been a worker and were looking through records of workers who might share your description. None of them had tried to check your chip, but that was probably the only thing kept you from being checked for having magic and then being killed. As long as you were a runaway worker instead of the runaway pet from the skeleton household that you were tied to then you were safe.

Eventually they just assumed you’d been gone long enough to be pronounced dead, and so your number had been reassigned. So you’d been taken from the station to a registration office, though on the way you thought you’d seen a pair of familiar figures, but they were gone from view too fast for you to be sure. The registration office wasn’t really anything impressive. They hadn’t even given you a new chip as you got the new code of CC-w5400.  You did your best to memorize the number, but you’d need a while in order to get used to being referred by that now. Since they hadn’t given you the chip, you were instead outfitted with one of those stupid collars that only those with magic could unlatch. You really hated these things, but if it kept you alive, then you could deal with it. The weight was uncomfortable, but at least it wasn’t too tight around your throat like you’d had to deal with in the past.

After that you’d been brought to the place where you were now currently just reflecting on the day while spread out on a cot that felt a lot like the one from the shelter, only you were on the bottom bunk of a bunk bed that was one of many in this room. It was probably only just early evening by this point, but it was hard to tell with there only being small windows high up on the wall that had bars in them to keep anyone from managing to escape. Not the most comfortable thing in the world, and there were a lot of other humans around which you were torn on how to feel about. On one hand you were all the same species which was neat and you’d love to try talking to them to learn about what goes on here, but at the same time the most you’d heard any of them speak was a ‘yes sir’ when given orders earlier before they went and did it. Even then it looked more like they were just following what they were meant to do rather than actually comprehending what they were saying. From what you’d seen when you’d watched them, the humans here were able to understand one another simply by making small noises and gestures which didn’t fit any language you knew, but you would hardly consider yourself an expert on language.

You’d managed to take a nap earlier just after you’d got here an the other humans were still out and about or sleeping themselves, but when the other humans came back it wasn’t a quiet affair. None of them were trying to sleep currently either, but most were thankfully out in another part of the complex at the moment. This definitely wasn’t the only room where humans slept from what you’d seen on your way in, but that was fine because there were other rooms that were much bigger than this that let them be in a communal area or eat or something of the sort. You hadn’t gotten the best look, but that make the most sense given what you did know. Which wasn’t a whole lot, but it was something at least.

The door to the main hallway that monsters used and that lead outside of the building was opened with a loud squeal of protest from the hinges. The monster that stepped in to block the possible escape route had a rough voice as they called out a series of numbers. You tried to listen in for your new number, but you were still blurry as to what some of them were. Humans that recognized their numbers were getting up and walking over to the monster. Things went quiet as the humans must have been counted over before a couple numbers were called again with a hint of anger. Was one of those you? Maybe you should go over to check just to be sure.

A yelp left you as you fell out of the bed you were starting to get off of when a strong shock of crackling energy surged through you and straight to your soul from the collar. All your limbs went numb as you landed face first on the chilled concrete floor. Luckily it’d been your cheek that hit the ground first so your nose was fine. While it hurt, the worst that would happen was a bruise that could be easily healed. All your teeth seemed firm still so that was one less thing to worry about. Hands were quick to grab you and help you to your feet again and support you as you wobbled once on them. To be fair, this would be easier if remnants of the energy from before was still echoing around your soul in a distracting and intrusive feeling way. This was just one of those ways being sensitive to your soul was not so great.

With clenched teeth, you shook off those helping you stand once you were brought before the monster in the doorway. There was no doubt that they were the one that had caused that, and you weren’t too happy with them for it. You fought the urge to crinkle your nose or puff up your chest in defiance like you’d seen Blue to Stretch when pouting to try and win their arguments. It was still best if you didn’t show anything beyond subservient behaviours, so you had to squash down any of those more rebellious behaviours you might’ve adopted while with the skeletons. Reducing back towards what you were like for Digger and his friends instead was probably better. They needed a human who could follow orders when they had a worker, not the more free spirited attitude of a loose reigned pet.

“Come when I call next time,” the monster sneered at you. Your soul felt like something tight wound around it despite knowing that wasn’t possible given the lack of active foreign magic within your system. This didn’t sit well with you, but you would deal with it. Things could be worse. You’d already dealt with worse. Didn’t stop the boiling in your soul.

The feeling didn’t ease anytime soon as you were were guided into the back of a large van. Food of some kind was passed around to all the humans before the doors were shut. What a wonderful evening. Being put in the back of a van separated from the front by some kind of wall while sitting on a bench seat squished between two other humans. You could only imagine what this must be like with a bunch of sweaty humans. The image left you pulling into yourself to try and afford you some space while scrunching up your nose. The others seemed unbothered by such thoughts as they ate their food, and you couldn’t share their sentiments. While you were hungry from having not eaten today, the food just wasn’t appealing to you. Maybe it was the fact that your stomach was in knots from everything going on, but it could also be that the food seemed to be regular old human food. Not something you were exactly in the mood for at the moment after spending a good week and a bit eating food with high amounts of magic in it. It’s not that you couldn’t or shouldn’t, it’s just that you wouldn’t. Your body was going to hate you when you woke up in the morning or after whatever was going on, but you didn’t have it in you to care at the moment. You’d used up a lot of magic today, and while you could regain it slowly by natural mean that was an agonizingly slow process given the human’s body more physical nature. It’d be easier to draw from the environment which wasn’t an option with all the monsters constantly around, or to eat food with magic in it to help replenish it which seemed your only option. Besides, having food go through you felt weird. So you could just wait for them to hopefully cave and feed you something with magic in the future. Probably a bad idea if you were being honest, but you didn’t really have it in you to care at the moment.

After a too long drive, you were let out into the darker outdoors once more. As dark as being near a large lit up building could be at least. While they ushered you in quickly, you managed to catch a glimpse of a sign. While it was hard to read that fast, you did manage the word laboratories at the end. Excitement bubbled up in you along with dread which was a strange combination. As much as you were interested in what this place did, you could also very well be there as a test subject. Though why they would want their test subjects at this time was beyond you.

It didn’t take too long to find out what was going on thankfully, so your nerves were mostly settled not long after being disturbed. Seems you were all there to clean. It seemed that the monsters currently here didn’t realize you were new, and so they just gave you supplies and directed you to a room to clean. A little odd that they didn’t keep track of that, but they probably didn’t care as long as everything got done.

Luckily, you’d grown up with at least one somewhat neat freak in the house, so cleaning wasn’t a rare occurance to be dragged into. You were pretty efficient at it after learning some neat tricks. So since you could probably get done quickly should you actually attempt to clean, you decided to give yourself the leeway of exploring the lab you were put in. There were quite a few workstations neatly put about, and a whiteboard off to one side of the room along with a bunch of cabinets along the one wall. Looking at it, you scrunched up your nose at the equations that filled it. Not only were there missing pieces where the team was obviously still working on things you thought were pretty obvious, but a couple numbers were wrong or misplaced for what they looked to be accomplishing. Your fingers twitched as you itched to quickly solve the problems and finish the equations. It’d been so long since you’d last done something like this.

A blank piece of paper and a pen weren’t hard to find and you sat down at one of the workstations to work on this. You could probably get it done, or pretty far along before you’d have to clean and move on to avoid suspicions. Whatever you did would push the team ahead in their work, so you couldn’t be upset over helping other out if even in a small way. Out of habit you scribbled notes down all over the paper of either random thoughts to get them out of your head faster, or notes relating to the equation and helping you make sure everything was proper. These of course were done in your father’s script as not many knew how to read it and thus it was a great way to keep confidential information confidential even if it did end up stolen.

You took small breaks to do some cleaning as things progressed, but eventually you had the equation satisfactory enough. Not optimized, but complete to the point it should work. You stretched with a grin on your face. This had made you feel a lot better after everything that had happened. So you quickly nabbed some tape from one of the other desks before attaching your paper to the board for the team who worked in here to find when they next came in. Having done that, you let your mind wander while finishing the cleaning and going to exit the room once more. Maybe you shouldn’t do that in all the rooms you end up tasked to clean, but it had definitely given you a boost.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter isn't as long as I would have liked, but it's needed for set up for what's coming. That and I really wanted something out today even if my computer has been finicky lately.  
> Alright, so this probably should have been done sooner, but I never really had anything noteworthy for it. I'm referring to a nickname to call the MC beyond just referring to her as MC, or reader, or any other generic name like that. This is being brought up now because last chapter Venus referred to her as Sunna, which I've heard a couple people voice their enjoyment over. So if you'd like to have her be referred to as Sunna or some other name rather than MC in chapter notes then go ahead and mention it down in the comments, or come bug me about it over on [my tumblr.](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/) This is also something that could very well impact an idea I have for something coming up in the story too, so if that interests you then go ahead and add your vote or idea for a name to all of this. The name with the most interest around it will be the one I pick when the next chapter comes out, so you guys have at least a week to figure this all out.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A trashy day.

You danced through a field full of flowers the likes of which you’d only seen in pictures of places beyond your reach. It was beautiful and you were careful to avoid stepping on the blooms with each footfall. A tunic the colour of your soul had a white belt keeping it from flowing too far from your body as you spun and hopped around to a tune only you could hear. A wind blew through the clear, making the plants dance with your. Laughter poured from you as you enjoyed the scene straight from the stories you’d read and been told as you grew up. You could stay here forever.

An intense tingling numbness flooded through the back of the left side of your head as the world around you seemed to change to be off somehow. All your movements ceased as you stood there numbly in shock. Your left hand slowly slid up to the spot only to meet a missing spot in your head and warm liquid falling freely from the now empty area. It took until after your hand was in front of your face while fully coated in blood that you finally had the ability to even question what had happened. You’d been alone in the field, hadn’t you?

Turning, a skeleton with a matching injury stood there grinning at you. Red stained his teeth and down his chin where it still dripped from being fresh. It was with an odd sense of detachment that you realized that the red was your blood and he must have bitten a chunk out of your head. The thought didn’t really disturb you despite your blood staining the blue jacket and white shirt he wore. His eyes were empty as a thick black substance poured from them and his skull began to melt while slowly turning into that same substance. His right eye vanished completely to become part of the melted mess while the left one was smoking with a red glow as the hole in his skull instead became a deformed spot where random spurts of the thick darkness would shoot out and fall somewhere on the flowers. Wherever it fell the flowers around it withered became black husks of their former selves. A laugh came from deep within the thick mass, but it was hollow and echoed around in a distorted warble.

Even with the slow thought process you were somehow able to maintain despite the missing chunk, you knew you had to get out of there.Gracefully you stumbled back before falling to the ground. Looking at your feet you noticed black vines that had wrapped around your feet. Slowly they crawled up your legs while gaining the same appearance as the skeleton before you. No matter how much you tried to get them off you, the slimy things stuck to you surprisingly well no matter how much they felt like they should just slide right off.

A growl left you as you glared up at the inky skeleton who was grinning back down at you. He seemed to be enjoying your struggle with that manic smile. A spear formed above you and that gained a satisfying startled appearance from him. A small feeling of victory flit through you as it shot through the glowing eye. The goopy explosion was gross, but you had more pressing issues with the tendrils still clinging to you. A second spear appeared and you grabbed it so you could use the point to cut the gross things. You scrambled to your feet as soon as you were able and took off running across the flower field.

Black vines shot up from the ground all around you and caused you to fall once more. A squeal left your lips as you collided with the quickly dying flora. That was swiftly cut off by vines wrapping around your throat. More wrapped all around your body as you struggled against them. A sense of horror washed over you as you saw the skeleton walking over to you as the tar of his head slowly pulled itself back into shape. It was gross and disgusting and you struggled more to be rid of whatever that thing was. Be rid of all of this. The skeleton just game close with a dark aura about him until he was right over you. It was uncomfortably close, but it became obvious that the skeleton didn’t care about the same things you did as he brought one hand back. The liquid appearance of his form shifted the hand into more of a spear shape just like you’d used on him and then it came shooting down for your matching eye.

 

You took in a sharp breath as your form remained otherwise unchanged on your bed. All your senses were on high alert as you listened for any noise or possible threat in the dim light of what must be dawn. Once you ascertained you were safe and the only one who seemed to be awake, you let yourself relax into violent shaking as you took deep breaths to try and calm your frazzled nerves. You even let your eyes slide open to look into the dim lighting to try and make out the dark shapes of bunk beds with sleeping humans in them. A shadow appeared to move and your eyes darted over to it as your body stiffened while preparing for flight or fight responses to be need, but when it didn’t move for at least a minute you calmed a bit once more.

What kind of messed up dream was that? Shivers crawled up and down your spine while you hugged yourself. Unease bubbled in your soul. It didn’t help that this room was quiet beyond the noises of breathing. If you strained your ears you could make out faint musical notes from the hallway the monsters used, but it was hard to detect. Honestly, you just wanted to curl up next to somebody and cuddle, but you had nobody here. So the pillow became your cuddle buddy.

The next however long was spent floating in and out of consciousness as you cuddled your pillow and kept tears at bay. This place was so lonely and quiet and you hated it. You hated that you couldn’t leave to go look at the stars. Well, you could leave, but that’d make it so you’d have to run again. You didn’t want to have to run for your life for the rest of your existence. That lots of magic use was a bad idea with how much you used yesterday anyway. Human food didn’t replenish that - though it’s not exactly like you ate or were hungry for any now even as your stomach complained - so you were stuck waiting for a natural regen in a place with little ambient magic. It could takes months for you to get back up to full even though you’d done your best to heavily rely on the magic in the air around you rather than your own stores as much as possible.

Your body complained as other humans would get up and leave for food. They would return a while later and go about whatever it is they did while in here. Instead of trying to interact with them or follow their example, you stayed curled up in bed with your pillow. There was no point in interacting with them at this point, none of them would properly understand you anyway. Well, it was highly unlikely that any of them would properly understand you, and even more unlikely that they’d be able to give you a response that fit the scenario unless you asked yes or no questions. Even though you’d been in this place for so long, you still couldn’t understand why humans had ended up like this. While of course you didn’t have enough information to be able to figure it out, you still tried to occasionally wrap your mind around the possibilities.

 

Today was overcast and the world was cooler than it had been yesterday. Winds rushed pass with enough force to drag any long hair and loose clothes along with it, though it never tore anything away beyond a few papers you’d noticed flailing about near the ground as you sat in that van. Even in the van the air was chilled, and you found yourself glad for the nearby bodies for being able to share in their warmth.

You hadn’t been allowed to keep your jacket when you’d first been brought into the place you’d been staying. In fact, you hadn’t been allowed to keep any of your clothing. Instead you were forced out of them by a monster stirpping you and then dressing you in the other outfit which you now still wore. It was a strange cross between some kind of uniform and what you could only describe as peasant or slave clothing. While it was fitting considering your roll, it was strange to wear nonetheless. You’d only worn clothes that matched somebody when wearing a costume, and never had anything on a scale like this before. In fact, you couldn’t think of any time where you’d seen a large group wearing outfits like this beyond the guard, but even then that varied for the individual in some way still.

Pushing beyond that, you startled when you realized the van had stopped and you were supposed to be moving already. That was definitely a shorter trip than you expected, but you appeared to be at some sort of park or something that almost felt more like a courtyard or plaza to the buildings around it. Shuddering from the crisp wind as you first stepped out of the van, a defensive hug was deployed to try and hold some warmth too you. It didn’t help much.

A garbage bag was shoved into your arms as you were directed to head towards the other side of the place and pick up any garbage you found along the way. Hopefully if you finished your task quickly enough you’d be allowed to get out of this cold sooner. You weren’t used to dealing with it like this as you were usually much better equipped, so honestly you just wanted to head home and curl up in some soft and warm clothes, maybe under a blanket too with a warm drink to combat the chill. Where exactly you wanted to be - the place you grew up or the skeleton household - you weren’t exactly sure at the moment, but if it got you out of this cold then you were more than okay with either miraculously happening.

Garbage collecting was boring if a bit gross, but at least it was helping make the place look nicer. The place hadn’t been super messy to begin with, but it was probably the thought that counted. The edge of this plaza area was already not too far away. Your fingers had the pinpricks you’d associated with slowly numbing hands and your nose and ears were already ahead of them there. What you wouldn’t give to cuddle with a fire elemental at the moment. Like the one wearing a necklace that had just turned onto a street off the corner of the plaza.

Realization made you freeze for a moment. They’d had a necklace. While you couldn’t be completely sure of what you saw, you were pretty sure you had recognized the necklace. Glancing down at the bag in your hands and then back at the other humans and the monsters supervising you, you came to your decision quickly. You had to check this out to alleviate at least the ice in your soul if you couldn’t combat the icy feeling slowly eating away at your body.

You dropped the bag where you were standing and took off running with one thought resounding through your mind;  _ get to the fire elemental _ . Nothing else mattered in the moment. Not the guards, not the cold, not even the punishment you could get because of this. All that mattered was the fire elemental and the rhythmic pounding of the shoes you wore on the concrete - not even your boots had been left for you to keep as they’d been assumed stolen from a store given their quality.

Flickering light was quickly disappearing into an alley when you managed you reach the street and a sense of worried confusion hit you. Had they seen you and were running away? Why would they do that?

Caution seeped into your slowing steps as you thought about how strange it was. Even stranger was the feeling of magic permeating the area in a way that was was definitely from active use. A trill of fear crept into your soul as you noticed that despite this stronger magic, the music of the area was feeling more empty and quiet. There was also a faint static quality to it. The area’s normal music shifting into something new that reminded you of a battle theme. Something definitely wasn’t right here.

A blue shimmering string caught your attention. Oh stars. You never thought you’d meet with the Destroyer face to face. More of a hope, but here you about to do something stupid just to see if you were right about a necklace of all things. You couldn’t decide if it would be better or worse if the Destroyer wanted to keep you. Probably best just to go with the flow.

Taking a deep breath you prepared yourself for probably imminent death before letting it all out as loud a scream as humanly possible. The whole area went death silent at it before the music grew dangerously loud and your soul was then caught tight in a wrap of strings. They tugged you back into that same alley and there you stood facing the Destroyer. You paid him little mind as your eyes darted around the alley for possible advantages and as to where the other monster had gone. It didn’t even matter that your soul was on pretty clear display through the strings so your magic could be seen roiling faintly through it. The minty swirls were fainter and less prevalent as last time your soul had been out, but their appearance only matched the amount of magic in your stores.

The fire elemental you’d followed was leaning against the wall to your right and you could see their head directed to look right you would. One of their hands slowly moved up to the necklace that hung from their neck and you shot a small smile at them before the world began to flicker black and white. The monster vanished from view along with most other things. The only thing to remain was the Destroyer and his strings.

His eyes were focused on your soul and you knew he was seeing more than you ever could by looking at it. The thought made you shudder, which only caused a gasp of pain to wisp out of you when the strings tightened around the manifestation of your very being.

On instinct your soul began to draw in magic from your surroundings while pushing out some of what was left to fill in the gaps before the glitchy skeleton before you could react. Spears shot up out of the ground in front of you and cut through the strings. The ones still wrapped around your soul dangled loosely for a moment before fading without the connection to the source that had been feeding them to keep them there as these ones hadn’t been permanent like you knew he could make some.

“yOuu fiLthy gLiTCh!!” he hissed, obviously outraged as the battle themed that’d been nagging the back of your mind kicked into full swing even though the battle space around the two of you melted back into the alley. The lack of the encounter for this battle through you off, but you supposed that since this was the Destroyer, he deemed himself strong enough to beat you easier without it. That and being outside of an encounter let him repeatedly attacking you without waiting for your turn to occur. Honestly fighting outside of an encounter felt rude and a bit barbaric, but you could manage. You’d trained often enough outside of encounters to know how to handle yourself as much of a pain as it could be.

More strings appeared as the Destroyer tugged them from his eyes. You shifted on your feet before they shot towards you. Strings hit the spot you swiftly jumped from at the last moment with enough deadly forced to damage the ground. A shiver ran up your spine at the sight as you realized the intent he must be putting behind them. He wanted death, or to at least bring you to the brink of it. You’d never fought such a dangerous monster before. You’d never fought anyone this dangerous before for that matter.

As more strings arced after you, you took off running the long way around the Destroyer to get to the fire elemental. You needed to make sure they were okay after all. Spears would form in the air behind you as you rushed along, spinning for a moment before they shot off towards the glitchy skeleton. This had him also forced to dodge or block and gave you a bit more leeway in your actions.

A clump of spears appeared next and shot at the skeleton causing him to swear as he was forced to retreat. You were left a panting, sweaty mess as you dropped to your knees next to the elemental. Magic was quickly being drawn into your soul as your stores were getting almost dangerously low. Thanks to it being magic from a fight, the magic energized and reinvigorated you to continue. Definitely better than that coffee stuff, any day.

Something warm grabbed your hand and you startled slightly while looking down at the fire elemental. There was a bit of a grin in how the flames of his head danced and you smiled back. Looking down your smile grew into a grew into a grin as you recognized it as the one you’d made as a thank you gift for the necklace you’d been given yourself. You were glad it was still worn so closely to the soul who’d given you such a special item. It felt right that you’d given it to him given you’d both felt out of place and the necklaces were a way of showing togetherness. He’d felt out of place due to being a monster made with human magic to serve them. Of course he was a free soul by the time you were around, but others still weren’t always sure how to treat him.

Magic rushed into you from the hand gripping your own and you blinked in surprise before quickly tightening your grip on his own in return. It shot straight to your soul before echoing through it and shooting out down your other arm. You swiftly raised that arm in return and a large jet of flames burst forth from it in the direction you guided it. The glitched skeleton didn’t have much time to process what was coming for him before he had to dodge. That was the biggest flame jet you’d ever seen in your life, though you’d never acted as an amplifier for one before.

Shouting from outside of the alley had the Destroyer growling lowly as you could see him glaring at you. “thiS ISN'T oVEr, GLitCh.” A blocky white portal appeared and he was quick to duck through. It vanished quickly behind him. As it faded, you glared right back at the narrowed sockets sneering at you. You felt you did a good job of hiding the relief of not having to face him any longer even though the shouting was a bit worrisome.

No time to dwell on that, you had an injured elemental right next to you that you needed to check over. Turning back to him you quickly felt your face heat up embarrassedly when his free hand moved up to rest over where your necklace should be. A comforting warmth that you greatly missed flowed through your body at the fire magic sitting there, but you could just smile sadly. “It’s been a long… however long we’ve been here.” The flames on his head shrank slightly and you felt the hand move up to the collar around your neck. “Yeah, I suppose I don’t need this anymore, huh?”

You could feel his gaze as you pulled back from him. It wasn’t hard to take off the collar as you pushed your magic into your fingers to set off the triggers to unlock the thing. Rolling your head you felt a smile tugging at your lips as you threw the thing across the alley. Honestly, you’d like to destroy it too, but that was more effort and attention than you wanted to give it.

Keeping that magic at your fingertips, you changed it from unfocused energy to healing magic with a small amount of effort. A smirk played at your lips as you watched it change. Then your attention was on the elemental next to you once more. “Let’s get you patched up and then we can find everyone else, right?” Wistful and hopeful tones seeped into your voice and the flickering of the flames became softer in a gently reassuring way.

Idle chatter about how you’ve been living with eight skeletons for a week left your mouth as you were happy to share the craziness of that arrangement and stray away from the darker topics you’d dealt with. The healing magic took to the elemental easily as he willingly accepted your help and it was so much easier than the time that Sans had nearly fallen down. Though then again Sans had been close to death and this was just a few smaller injuries that you could spend the time healing fully.

A growl came from the end of the alley and you froze as the magic in your hands sputtered out. Panic seeped into your soul and dug in its icy claws as a shaky breath left you. You didn’t even get the chance to look back at the entrance of the alley before you were being pulled into the vest covered chest of the elemental before you. A noise of protest left your mouth as you were then quickly shoved to his other side and somewhat behind him. The elemental slowly pushing himself to his feet to guard you.

“Gr-” One of his hands motioned for you to stop and you went silent quickly. A mix of worry, panic, and confusion lancing through you, but you wouldn’t disobey somebody you trusted with your soul and who you knew had your best interests in his.

A dog monster you didn’t recognize who wore a guard uniform paced towards the two of you. “Stand down elemental,” they growled out. The two stood face to face and it didn’t look like either were going to budge. You grabbed at the dirty pant leg placed protectively in front of you and hoped that would somehow get across that you didn’t want him getting in trouble for your sake.

The elemental looked back over his shoulder at you and you just sent a pleading glance upward. His flames dimmed and he spun on the spot while kneeling down. One hand was set on your shoulder in a way that felt so familiar and you smiled sadly while bringing up a hand of your own to put on top of his. “The Angel’s Temple.” You blinked in surprise at his voice. “Somebody’s usually around there just in case you appeared there once more.” A slight nod barely moved your head as you began to gather more magic. Maybe you could teleport the two of you out of danger and then you could head that way. Moving two souls was more effort than just one though, so you’d need more magic, especially if you planned on getting far enough that they couldn’t easily find you again.

Unfortunately a rough grip caught your shirt and tugged you away from the gentle hand on your shoulder. A small hiss left your mouth as you sent a glare at the dog monster. They scowled back with a sneer that exposed some of their sharper teeth. You quickly found yourself shrinking in their hold as your breathing became more shallow. You really didn’t need another dog monster bite to add to the collection you’d gotten while with Digger. Hopefully backing down like this would keep those teeth from actually sinking in, unlike with Digger and friends.

You could hear a disgruntled and slightly worried noise from the elemental now behind you as you were dragged away from him. Fear kept you from looking back. Didn’t need to give the monster easily pulling you around an excuse to do something to you beyond whatever else they already had planned. They must have seen your magic given the timing of their growl happened while it was still in use. Hopefully your death would be quick and painless.

There was some shouting and you looked around just long enough to see a fish monster with scarlet hair barking out orders with their back turned to you. The guard outfit clear on both them and the other monsters scurrying around. You didn’t get much of a chance to take in anything other than the yellow eye staring at you in a mix of surprise and something pleased before you felt your soul being tugged out of your chest. All you caught then was what looked to be a flash of surprise before the eye darted down to the core of your very being.

Something was loudly called out by the dog monster still holding you, but panic had blood rushing through your ears too quickly to make it out. Looking down at your soul let you know the minty swirls of magic were much clearer now than they were when the Destroyer had grabbed it not long ago. All the guards had to know you could use magic now. Something that sealed your fate even if you managed to escape. Now you’d be hunted no matter where you were as they could easily access the file of you as a worker to hunt you down and look for you even if you got away.

A pawed hand gripped your soul. Panicky breaths came fast and shallow as your thoughts flashed to the last time you’d had a pawed hand on your soul. The same memory of being brought near death and then forcibly healed repeatedly for Digger’s amusement as the one that’d flashed through your mind when Sans had gone to brush your soul returned worse than that night. Your eyes were burning and you couldn’t tell if you’d been staring or if it was from tears as your vision blurred and the grip on your soul tightened a smidge. It wouldn’t take too much more to crush it. Just the right amount of pressure and any soul would shatter if stories you’d been told an eternity ago were true. Surely these guards were all trained enough to know how to accomplish this.

You closed your eyes and braced for whatever was to come. Heat building into an inferno behind you being the only thing you registered beyond the grip on your soul slowly growing stronger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After a couple weeks of computer problems and sickness, I can finally get this out. Honestly I was a little worried that it wouldn't even make it out this week, but thankfully it's here now.  
> What a fun day for our little Sunna, huh? Also yes, that looks to be what she'll be called now. While I do have an idea for how to work it into the story, it'll be a little bit before it can slip in there.  
> As for the ending of this chapter... Well the next chapter might not be exactly what you might expect. At least we got to meet a certain fiery soul from Sunna's past though, huh? Also Error made an appearance. Sunna's lucky he didn't want to have to deal with a whole crowd of monsters or else things could have gone south very quickly. Even just him underestimating her probably saved her life.  
> [My tumblr](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/) has been a little inactive lately, but with the previously mentioned computer problems and sickness I think we can let that slide. I have a few ideas for side shorts I could write, like the skeletons reactions to Sunna having fun away, some context as to what Undyne was doing in this chapter of all monsters, or even a short that's unrelated to the current happenings of the story, but still ties into the world. If you want to come yell some motivation at me for any of those then be my guest.  
> Until next time then.~


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Deja vu.

Stars filled your vision. Was this death? It felt sort of chilly, so it could be. Staring at stars for eternity would be a nice afterlife. However your neck complaining was suggesting otherwise.

With a slow blink you brought your head down to look around you. Your limbs quickly froze at the familiar sights as your mind began to race. This was the backyard of the skeletons’ house. This had to be from the night before you ran away because that was the only night you’d snuck out to see the stars like this. A hand was quickly brought up over your soul as you sunk down to your knees. Had that been a reset or a reload? Had you died? How long had you been dead before it even happened if that was the case? Did anyone else notice the jump in time? Who had even caused it?

All thoughts stuttered to a halt after that last thought. Who  _ had _ caused that time jump? With all these humans around it was near impossible to say, but then again all the rules you knew about the power might be easily ripped out from under your feet given you didn’t know this place that well. If monster souls were truly stronger than human souls then that definitely threw a wrench into things. With nothing to go off of, your guesses were as good as throwing rocks over a waterfall and hoping they’d hit what you wanted them to rather than missing or hitting everything else.

A hand resting on your shoulder startled you out of your thoughts as you quickly pulled away from the touch, your soul jumping into a frantic panic. Your mind was automatically jumping to worst case scenario even though you already knew what was supposed to happen tonight. Emphasis on that supposed to as every action you made differently would change the outcome, just like anyone else who remembered in any capacity. You’d already begun to stray from what you were supposed to be doing. How was that going to impact things?

You let your eyes shoot up to meet Sans’s own widened sockets as you waited for him to make his move. You knew what he was supposed to say, and you could feel the anxious magic rolling over every nerve while trying to jump out and lash out at whatever was causing you this stress. Still, it was important you keep it in control as to avoid accidentally injuring Sans.

“i knew it.” What did he know? Was it the same as last time where he was now sure of your magic, or was he now sure you also remembered. You were pretty sure that he was just talking about the former, but this place had thrown stranger things at you. The words all sounded the same as far as you could remember with everything that had happened since you last experienced this moment, and a small part of you cried. You didn’t want to be the only one to remember, but there was always whoever had set time back. There was no way to know of their intent yet. Maybe he was worried about changing things up as well if he knew what had happened? Resets were always a pain.

You froze as your mind began to race once more. Was this a reset or a reload? There was a difference in how much time would likely jump back. Reloads could be to any random yet still fixed point in time, whereas resets were absolutely anchored to one point in time with no way to change this fact as far as you were aware. There was just so much you didn’t know and that terrified you.

“hey.” You blinked back out thoughts as Sans crouched in front of you. The concern in his eyes made you wiggle a little uncomfortably in your sitting position. “i was going to ask if maybe i could see your soul, but you seem distracted and upset. i won’t do anything to hurt you over this. i’m just curious about you even more now than i was when we first met. it’s not everyday you meet a human in a shelter after all. there are usually much different places to find them.” There was something in his gaze you couldn’t quite describe, and you definitely couldn’t make out if it was from your behaviour or the jump back in time.

A startled feeling jumped into your throat as you realized he wasn’t asking to see your soul. If he didn’t look at it then he wouldn’t touch it, and if neither of those happened, then he wouldn’t make his promise. What if that promise was important? It could help you avoid death this time around at least. If you played your cards right that was. There was so many factors to play over and try to plan a route through the next day and a bit. Could you change where you ran? That would mean missing meeting Venus, Jet, Pak, and Lune, but it could also mean not having to face Edge again after you’re gone, and then also missing those guards. Unless you went with Edge? What if you didn’t run at all? You had no guarantee there’d be another jump back in time to that moment, so you had to be careful about your actions. You may have future knowledge of what some may cause, but this could be your only time to get things right. Would Error go back to try to that alley again? It was unlikely was the Destroyer worked on a different time schedule than the rest of the world. Was he even repeating his attack from tonight? Suppose you’d find out tomorrow. At least you wouldn’t be wasting time searching around for the cause of the lack of noise since it was likely caused as a foreboding way to get you ready to run for when Trife and Graze came for you with those other guards.

Sans snapping his fingers together caught your attention. “wow, you’re spacey tonight. maybe we should get you to bed.” He sent a gentle smile at you that was probably meant to comfort you, but you really couldn’t be comforted at this moment. You didn’t know if you were even going to be able to sleep at this rate.

You shook your head as you look at him and put a hand over where your soul usually emerged. Sans blinked as if unsure what you were doing. Sighing, you realized you’d have to initiate this yourself. As much as your mind was screaming at you not to, you knew this had to be done. You had to play that memory of Digger holding your soul and the events surrounding that for Sans, even though you really didn’t want to. Then again you’d probably dealt with worse for the sake of trying to get things to go right after time jumped back.

The seafoam green bathed the light bathed you and lit up Sans’s shocked expression. You looked at him expectantly, but he just stood there seeming unsure of what was going on. All you could do was shift with the uncertain energy that was fluttering through you. Your soul echoed your feelings as it pulsed in a similar fluttering manner. A deep breath helped settle all that energy as you reminded yourself that despite the fact that you might need that promise, you’d need to wait for him to make it. You couldn’t, and wouldn’t, force it out of him. With these thoughts, your soul began to glow a bit brighter.

The change in brightness seemed to intrigue Sans as while that caution still remained, he moved somewhat closer to get a better view. His hand twitched at his side as if he was fighting the urge to reach out. A little bothersome, but you could wait for him. If it was meant to happen it would still occur no matter what you did to try to change it. Well, there was always a way to work around something, but it could be difficult to accomplish, and even then something else could pop up. This is why acting out of line could be so hard when time jumped back. Was there even a perfect route through life in the grand scheme of things? You actions at any given moment could have echos that might not appear until years later, and they might not even seem related.

Sans slowly raised his hand up to in front of his chest. He moved his gaze back and forth between your soul and your face, as if unsure if you were really trusting him to look at it. While this probably did seem like it was coming out of nowhere for him, you just continued to look at him with that trusting and pleading gaze. You needed him to do this.

Before you could even think over your actions, you reached out and tugged Sans’s hand towards your soul. Unfortunately Sans had just started to move his hand of his own volition and so the added momentum moved his hand too fast towards your soul. Before either of you could even react, the tips of his phalanges were in your soul. A small gasp escaping you at the sudden invasion.

Panic swelled through you as you instinctively shot barriers up and squirreled away valuable memories as best you can to keep them out of his reach for as long as possible. He wouldn’t be able to access them without actively looking, but he was at least deep enough in that he should be able to register most of what’s going on at the moment. It didn’t help anything that both of you seemed locked stiffly in the shock of everything. Nor did the sight of something being in your soul bring up many good memories. From how Digger handled your soul to how easily Sans could kill you just like you probably got killed before time jumped back darted around in your head.

Unable to do much of anything else at the moment, your fingers tightened their grip on Sans as if he were your only lifeline. He was, really. In return, his fingers twitched in your soul which was met with your shallow breathing hitching and a full body twitch from yourself. You had no idea what he could be seeing right now, but both of you were trapped in this until you could separate enough mentally to be able to pull apart physically. That was your only way apart as your soul wasn’t sure what to do about the intrusion even though it made your eyes prickle and burn with tears that wanted out. With Sans’s magic being familiar, your soul wasn’t outright rejecting him, but it wasn’t accepting him easily either which is what was keeping the two of you stuck together until you could pull yourselves apart.

It was so hard to concentrate on anything by the intrusion. This wasn’t what you wanted, but it wasn’t awful. Each finger tip didn’t feel made of bone, but rather you could feel the magic that made them up with a strange tingle of the physical matter inside your essence. The feeling so foreign and all consuming.

Your magic had flared at the feeling of more coming in as it had been ready to attack an unwanted guest. With your soul not sure what to do with Sans though, your magic hadn’t know what to do either. Given that Sans was a being that ran on magical energy your own seemed to decide that shooting off into him was a wonderful way of voiding it’s excess so that you couldn’t be discovered through touch after this. Unfortunately it didn’t seem to know where to stop and it just kept going and going and you were feeling a tad lightheaded at this rate.

A gasp left you as Sans’s hand was tugged away from you, wrenched from your death grip on his ulna and radius. Your hands pulled back to provide a physical barrier between your soul and the rest of the world as you curled in on yourself. Chest heaving for air you didn’t realize you needed until now as you stared uselessly at the two pairs of feet not far from you with your head spinning from the rapid magic loss you’d experienced. Slowly, you blinked as you focused your gaze and rid yourself of the tears sitting there. Two pairs of feet?

Gently guiding your soul back into your chest, you carefully pushed it behind your barriers and reinforced them faintly. Feeling less exposed, you pushed yourself back up again, even going as far as to pushing yourself to a standing position. Your legs wobbled and you swayed from your lightheadedness. A small stumble had you tipping forward as you looked at the two in front of you. Thankfully you weren’t seeing double and the second pair belonged to Red had a slightly alarmed look on his face as he stepped forward and caught you.

Despite the disapproving and almost angry sounding hisses coming from Red, you couldn’t find it in yourself to care. You were light headed and tired. Fighting off the sluggishness as best you could, you narrowed your eyes at Red. He’d mentioned seeing you outside with Sans, but he hadn’t mentioned sticking around to watch you for any period of time.

A noise of protest left you as you were suddenly jostled roughly. Blinking, you realized Red had moved to put himself between you and Sans and his grip almost felt protective. As sweet as that could be, you couldn’t be sure if he really cared about you or if he was worried over what the others would do if they found you harmed. Though him treating Sans like a threat felt strange even after his fingers had been in your soul.

For his part, Sans was keeping it together pretty well. Beyond his dim eye lights as he stared right at you with wide eyes. There was no telling what he was reacting to, so quiet shock might be the best reaction considering what he could have seen. You definitely needed to have some sort of talk with him about that. In the meantime it seemed he and Red were talking about something. Their voices were in that range where they were soothing even if Sans seemed lost and Red seemed aggravated. The rumble right against you was nice too. A yawn left you as you were lulled to sleep while knowing you’d be safe. The skeleton household was home, and home was safe.

 

Your eyes shot open in silent terror only to freeze at the sight of concerned sockets staring down at you. That didn’t help your frantic heart as you yelped and scooted away from the sight. The orange of a hoodie barely registered as your mind clung to images of sharp points trapping your body and soul as laughter echoed from somewhere you couldn’t see. Warped laughter that sounded like a mix of things both familiar and unknowable.

“hey bud, it’s just me. it’s stretch. c’mon, take deep breaths.” You slowly followed along to the sound of deep breathing. “that’s it. good girl. keep breathing with me.” So you sat, and you let shaky breaths slowly ebb into calming waves of air.

With a calmer mind and the remnants of that nightmare quickly fading away, you took in the skeleton before you once more. He still looked worried, but a gentle smile was sitting on Stretch’s face as he waited for you. Right, you were safe. Back in the skeleton household after time jumped to the night before you ran away.

You shot up out of the bed and paused for a moment to realize you were still wearing your clothes from yesterday. Should you change or just leave it? “what’s wrong? you’re moving kind of fast there bud.” Looking back at Stretch, you gave him an awkward smile. You must be acting really out of sorts from his perspective. “if you’re worried about sans and red, they’ve been bickering quietly with each other since before the rest of us got up in the living room. we can go see them if you’d like after you get changed for the day. as much as i’m all for living in your clothes, don’t exactly think you want to get nagged about it if you’re in that kind of state.” Sans and Red were probably fighting over last night again, so you would definitely need to go see them.

Stretch chuckled as he ruffled your hair on his way out of the room. “the faster you change, the faster we can get going, yeah?” He didn’t even wait for a response before the door was swinging closed behind him. Well, at least that solved your problem over changing.

Since you went with the outfit you wore the last time this day happened, it didn’t take you long to change and leave your room. It seems your jacket and boots were back in the same place as last time which you made a mental note of on your way out. That’d be helpful for later. Had to be ready to get out of here as fast as possible once the music stopped, though for now you could relax in Stretch’s comforting melody.

Once upstairs, you peaked out the nearest window into the backyard. It was definitely earlier in the day now than it was last time you lived through this day. That gave you more time to prepare though. More time to prepare or more time to worry yourself into a tissy. Blue was also outside. He was bouncing around the obstacle course like it was nothing and even throwing in some of his own magic to influence how he got around the thing. Interesting and proved that he definitely probably was here all day.

A pat on your head started you enough to cause you to jump up into it. An embarrassed blush crept its way onto your face as you turn to look at Stretch. He just smiled at you before glancing out the window himself. “he’ll want to prepare you breakfast now that you’re up. you know where the living room is, so i’ll get him while you go join the other two.” A slow nod from you had him giving you one more pat before walking off.

You stood there awkwardly for a moment just watching him before turning towards the living room. Anything could be waiting for you in there, so you had to be ready. With a deep breath, you pushed on.

The first thing you noticed, aside from the two short skeletons standing closer to each other than you’d ever seen them before as they were wrapped up in their conversation, was that while the tv was on, it was playing some ad for a product you didn’t know. There was a moment of panic before you had to remind yourself that it was way too early in the day for the new program to even have the potential for playing that segment from last time. Hopefully you wouldn’t be dragged to watch those horrible movies with Red again.

Seeing as the two seemed to be too into their conversation to even notice you, you brought up a hand and knocked on the closest wall. It seemed like a good way to get their attention, but judging by at least Sans’s reaction maybe it wasn’t. He not only jumped while spinning to face the doorway with a slightly panicked look, his right eye was empty while the left flared with magic as you heard a battle song creeping along the edges of the rest of the noise in the room. Red seemed more alarmed by Sans than the knocking sound.

While Sans calmed himself down after noticing it was just you, Red took a moment to pick up on your presence. As soon as he did he was looking you over as you stood patiently waiting by the wall. “yer lookin pretty good after all that happened last night there, kitten.” You tilted your head slightly as you heard that nickname again. Something changed last night in both timelines to have him call you that. Given he must have watched for a while last time, he should have seen the glow of your soul even if he never saw your soul itself. So he’d have known you were kindness based and that must have eased his fears over your actions. That and you’ve been nothing but submissive - beyond that fight with Razz that he’d basically demanded you participate in - since coming to this house, so that probably played into him feeling a bit better around you as well.

“told you she’d be fine,” Sans mumbled as he looked over at Red.

Red growled lowly. “just ‘cause this has ‘happened before’ doesn’t mean things going the even remotely similar to what you explain actually prove your crazy talk is real.” That had your thoughts pause.  _ Happened before _ ? Did that mean Puff remembered? But he hadn’t seemed to last night. Maybe he saw some of what happened last time when he had his fingers in your soul.

“look, whether or not you believe me, we should still prepare for the possibility.” Sans’s attention seemed back on Red now, and Red’s was soon back to Sans as well as they got back into their bickering.

“i’m telling you there’s no point! why would they even come here?” You slowly started to back out of the living room. Maybe it was best to leave them to their squabbling for now. You could come back when they were doing better, if they were doing better before you had to leave again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time no see, guys. Sorry for this taking as long as it did. I had a severe lack of motivation and writer's block, which just make such a great pair. Anyway, I've been planning this for a while now, so I'm a bit excited to get into this. Hopefully the terrible pair don't come back to make it forever again.  
> Been unactive over on [my tumblr](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/) too, but if you'd like to come bug me over there then go right ahead and I'll do my best to get back into the swing of things.  
> Until next time.~


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diverging.

“M- er… Human?” You started and spun to look at Blue when he spoke from out of your view. A sheepish smile grew on his face as he realized his mistake. “Sorry.” He looked past you and towards the living room. “Are they still arguing in there?” Nodding slowly, you couldn’t help but wonder why he was speaking so quietly. He sighed, a mature sort of look that was burdened by some kind of knowledge sitting heavy on him. It was strange to see, but just as sudden as it seemed to appear, it vanished once more as he turned to smile at you while holding out a hand. You blinked slowly before realizing that he wanted you to take it.

Confusion vaguely flittered across Blue’s face before he was back to all smiles and pulling you along to the kitchen. It seemed so out of place you were almost sure you’d imagined it. This wasn’t his first time touching you, you were pretty sure about that. Of course your mind was still forcing itself to separate the time that no longer existed anymore as a separate entity now that you were basically reliving those days. Since it was still so fresh, when you tried to pull up the last time the two of you had touched it was that hug you’d given him before teleporting to run away that came to mind. If he remembered that in any capacity then going from feeling you full of magic to not having any magic would be strange, but nobody else around here seemed to even be having deja vu, so you highly doubt he’d remember anything either.

On the topic of remembering, time manipulation had something to do with determination. Maybe that’s why none of the monsters could remember it since their souls shouldn’t house much of it if any. Would that mean that the other humans would remember? Maybe only those with a certain amount of determination or more could remember? That was strange as you wouldn’t call yourself very determined. Could you perhaps just barely fit in that category? If so, how many humans remembered? It’d be impossible for you to get any sample size while lacking the ability to interact with other humans like this though, so it was all going to be left to speculation for now.

With a loud growl of your stomach, you were pulled from your thoughts to the sight of wonderful looking food. Blue snickering quickly as he ushered you onto a chair so he could give you a plate caused a faint flush of embarrassment to creep up on your face. You were going to blame the hunger on the amount of magic your soul had pushed into Sans last night, leaving you a tad on the emptier side when it came to your reserves. Food with magic in it sounded wonderful. Part of your problem might also stem from you refusing to eat before the time manipulation and your body and soul being confused over if you had enough food in you still. Getting food in you was probably just a good idea in general.

Happily chowing down on the wonderful food was made more difficult by the fact that you were trying to pace yourself even after discovering how ravenous you really felt. It would be rude, and probably bad for you, if you ate to fast. Even if it was magic food, you could still choke on it temporarily as it converted itself into energy. Best to avoid having that happen and freaking Blue out in the process. Small, pleased hums left you which seemed to put Blue in a good mood by the way he bounced, so enjoying this food was definitely the better option.

“SO, I WAS THINKING THAT MAYBE YOU’D LIKE TO JOIN ME IN GOING TO SEE SOME OF MY FRIENDS TODAY? WELL, ONE OF THEM IS MORE PAPPY’S FRIEND THEN MINE, BUT WE STILL GET ALONG. THEY’VE GOT THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS OFF SO THEY CAN SPEND TIME TOGETHER, BUT I DON’T THINK THEY’D MIND IF WE ALL HUNG OUT FOR PART OF JUST ONE OF THEM.” You blinked as your mind slowly tried wrapping itself around not only what Blue was saying, but how this change from last time could have occurred. Unless he went last time too and was back by the time you were running out the back door so you could run into him? That didn’t feel likely. Would he have offered this last time if you’d been up earlier? “I’M SURE THEY’D LOVE TO MEET YOU. THEY BOTH THINK HUMANS ARE COOL.” Movement caught your attention and you turned your gaze to catch Blue worriedly tugging at the ends of his gloves - first pulling it down from his fingers and then pulling the opening so it got pulled back on again - in a repeated motion that seemed to be directing his nervous energy elsewhere. It felt strange that he was asking this of you. He could just drag you along for the trip if he felt like it, so him getting your input when you were technically only a pet was strange. Blue had never treated you like that though. He was also kind and considerate even the first time the two of you had met. Well, excitable to the point of forgetting boundaries a bit too, but that was part of the charm about it since he apologized profusely and made sure to be extra careful about those boundaries once he noticed his mistake.

As much as a part of you wanted to turn down his request so you could stick around to check if you had to worry about a repeated attack tomorrow as you feared what might happen then if you weren’t around to draw out the session, you also didn’t want to be here when those other two skeletons - that weren’t Razz and Hickory, but eerily reminded you of them - showed up along with other guards. You could sneak out tomorrow if you had to, but running when those guards showed up would only lead to problems. Just look what happened last time. Of course maybe if you went with Edge instead of waiting on that bench things could have gone differently, and you doubted the hunt for you was going to be called off any time soon. Would they wait until you and Blue returned? Whatever it was, you were sure you could figure something out.

The way Blue lit up when you nodded was well worth the uncertainties that swarmed around you. An uncertain future was nothing new, and besides, you didn’t want to deal with all of that anyway. The exercise both physical and magical was probably good for you, but it’d been a long time since you could do that much of either and most of your magic had kind of been transferred into Sans last night. So thinking about it, this was probably your best option.

 

You’re pretty sure Red and Sans didn’t even notice when you left with Blue. Stretch wasn’t even anywhere around that you could see at that time. Blue had just left a note on the fridge along with instructions on what things in the kitchen were quick and easy to make for a meal for themselves. While you couldn’t help but feel a little bad about leaving them without any other announcement, Blue assured you it was fine when he caught you continually glancing back at the house.

Now you were standing in a parking lot for a large building that you were pretty sure was a mall, but you’d never been to one before so you couldn’t be sure. Perks of growing up in a small town included lack of city knowledge and not being used to the crowds. Though having minimal outside contact while locked in a room could do it for the crowds thing too. Unfortunately since the building was big, there was no doubt there’d be plenty of souls in there.

A comforting hand placed itself on your shoulder and you looked over at Blue. “Alph and Dyne just want to pick up a few things and then we were thinking of going out for a picnic,” he spoke in a soothing tone. He then paused as if just remembering something. “OH! And I didn’t want you to have to wear that collar, so I got you this!” He pulled a bracelet out of his pocket that was just a simple black cord with a beautiful pale blue stone of some kind. “I imbued it with my magic so that people will be able to use it to recognize that you’re with me. That way they don’t think you’re a worker or anything like that.” His choice of bringing up workers out of anything that you could be mistaken for was curious, but likely just coincidence. At least he remembered your aversion to the whole being collared thing and was nice enough to find a solution to work around it. You gladly held out a wrist so that he could put it on for you.

With that all out of the way, you followed Blue while cuddling into your jacket as he led you to the building. There was a number over the entrance that you barely got a glance at before a loud squeal had you jumping while darting your gaze to try and find the source.

A fish monster with blue scales and red hair that looked similar to the one that had been present when you soul was shattered was holding their hands over their mouth which effectively muffled the squeals. Unlike the other monster you’d seen in time that now hadn’t happened, they had both their eyes and had a pair of glasses instead of an eyepatch. Their hair was also up in a bun. They were wearing a black dress with white spots under a white coat. Meanwhile their yellow eyes practically sparkled while trained on you, and you weren’t sure how to feel about this.

The staring was only interrupted by the yellow lizard monster who stood next to them touching their arm. This caused the fish monster to look down at them before blushing. Whether that was because the other monster had said something, or from embarrassment, or if it was something else entirely you weren’t exactly sure. A quick look around from the lizard monster had the other monsters that were around quickly scurrying on to continue with what they were doing before they’d stopped to take a look at the cause of the noise.

The lizard monster themselves was somewhat in that middle ground between your height and Blue’s height, though that wasn’t a big gap. Their left eye was closed and probably permanently that way if the scars you could faintly see jaggedly running over the eye. Her navy blue coat was long and thicker than the fish monster’s, though you suspected that could be because the lizard monster was cold blooded. Well, as much as a being made of magic could be cold blooded.

“HELLO ALPH! HELLO DYNE!” Blue was all smiles as he walked in front of you towards the two monsters.

The lizard monster grinned. “Took you long enough to get here ya blueberry muffin.” Their voice was a little gruff, like it’d been strained one to many times from passionate fits of yelling and was now stuck this way. Blue puffed out his cheeks in a pout at the greeting and you found yourself snickering quietly at their interaction.

Suddenly the ground was out from under you and you let out a squeak of surprise as you twisted to see who had grabbed you. The need to know if this was a threat or not winning out over your learned response to just go limp when being forcefully handled. The fish monster had a huge grin full of pointy teeth as she cuddled you close like some sort of teddy bear. “Look at you! You’re so cute! Of course, I was excited when Alph informed me that Blueberry was joining us and that he was taking a human along - I really love humans - but I didn’t expect you to be this cute!” You could feel your cheeks warming up at the compliment. When was the last time you’d been called cute? The answer eluded you, so you could only assume it’d been a long while. It seemed like your blush just made the monster hugging you more excited as they just squealed again. You blinked a bit dazed as your ears rang from the loud high pitched noise. In response, your body went limp to try and help escape the grip sooner and hopefully get away from the noise for a bit.

The next thing you knew, you were sitting on the ground with Blue’s worried sounding voice saying something you couldn’t quite understand in your dazed state. Hands were holding your up in the sitting position on the ground, which was probably a good idea because your body was still feeling pretty limp and loose. You should probably do something to help alleviate Blue’s worry though. He didn’t deserve to be worrying like that when it was such a simple thing. So you blinked to try to clear your head while bringing your hands up to your ears to try and rub away the faint ringing still present.

Blue was crouched in front of you with his eye light wobbling worriedly as he stared at you. If he was there, who was holding you? You tilted your head back to be met with the snout of the lizard monster. Seemed they were the one holding you up. Actually, you should probably sit yourself up and them maybe stand up because this ground was cold to sit on.

Doing just that, you stretched once you were fully standing. Blue hovered next to you as if worried you fall over at a moment’s notice, so you gave him a small smile. He sighed and smiled back. Glancing around, the fish monster that had been hugging you was standing off to the side while clutching at her arm sheepishly. Her shoulders were climbing up to meet the fins on the side of her head when she noticed you looking in her direction. Not wanting her to feel bad about what she did, you smiled at her and waved. That seemed to help a little bit. At the very least her posture straightened a bit and her shoulders weren’t so high.

After the bumpy start, the shopping part of this trip could finally get under way. You followed the monsters a step behind as they chatted happily with one another. It was probably eavesdropping to listen in on them, but it wasn’t like you had much else to do. Through this, you learned that the two new monsters were girlfriends and that they were in town with Alph, the lizard monster, working her rotation here at the guard station while Dyne, the fish monster, was working at some labs here. Idly you wondered if that was the place you would have cleaned at had you followed through with the same actions as before the reset. They sounded like they’d only gotten in to the city earlier this week, and so this was their first time off since arriving. A part of you felt a little bad for interrupting on what could be private time for the couple, but they seemed so happy to have you and Blue along that it didn’t really seem to matter to them.

All in all, things were going pretty great. Naturally, this seemed to be the signal to life that something had to go wrong. “I’m sorry, but that  _ thing _ isn’t allowed in this shop.” A black cat monster practically hissed out. The group paused in their tracks on the way into one of the smaller stores in the mall.

“I’M… SORRY?” Blue’s face took on a perplexed look. Meanwhile the cat monster cringed at the volume of his voice while a sneer grew on their face.

“Didn’t you see the sign in the window?  _ Humans _ aren’t allowed in here. We don’t need them messing up our stock.” You shrunk down into yourself under the monster’s harsh gaze. The way they said ‘humans’ made you really uncomfortable. “Can’t even collar or put a leash the damn thing,” they mumbled under their breath as they crossed their arms over their chest.

Alph suddenly straightened up in front of you. “If that’s how it’s going to be then I guess you don’t need out patronage.” Without any other warning she turned and stormed right out of the doorway you hadn’t even made it through yet. Dyne was quick to follow her, and Blue grabbed your hand and led you after them as well.

“I can’t believe places like that still exist,” Dyne huffed when you got a bit away. “There’s no reason but stubborn dignity to uphold whatever stupid ideas their ancestors supposedly had about humans. Humans are passive creatures, and yours is obviously well trained, and-” You flinched slightly and tuned out her continued angry ranting. Reminders that you were just a pet that needed to be trained to have much worth stung. Even still, well trained felt more like a nice way to say you were broken.

With your head dipped to look at the ground in front of you, you let things pass in an indecipherable blur. Why would it matter if you were paying attention anyway? there wasn’t anything you could contribute to any of this. Wallowing in your lack of ability was all you were good for. Wallowing and waiting for when everyone realized you were too broken to be any fun. Even with you coming out of that shell a little bit over the past week or so. Everything felt kind of numb as you just robotically followed along behind these monsters who would tire of your presence soon enough. You followed them around the mall, back out into the parking lot where they talked about where they were going for that picnic Blue had mentioned earlier, and even got on and off the motorcycle when prompted. A good pet listened to orders. A good pet was a well trained pet.

This numb state of going with the flow was broken when you were at a park of some kind and a small monster ran into your side with a loud “omph.” On instinct you reached out to grab them to keep them from falling and getting hurt. Surprised at the soft feeling under your hands, you blinked at the sight of Jet in your arms. Looking around, you noticed Pak and Lune running towards you and Queen Venus looking worried on a bench not too far off. Jet didn’t seem anything more than surprised he’d run into something, so you let him go when he started to pull away.

“Sorry about that. I wasn’t looking where I was going because I was playing tag.” The prince blinked with a faint look of confusion growing on his face before he turned to look up at you. A surprised expression mixed with that confusion also sported a hint of recognition which had you raising a brow. Slowly, he continued, but instead of repeated his words from the last time you’d met him, his new words surprised you. “I’ve said that to you before, haven’t I? We’ve… We’ve met before, right?” Seemed like he didn’t quite remember your last meeting, though he definitely remembered more than your housemates, so that was a plus. For an answer, you gave him a small smile and nodded.

He seemed to be mulling this all over in his mind when Pak and Lune arrived. Both looking at you with familiarity. You smiled and waved at them. Lune tilted their head with a creased eyebrow. Pak, meanwhile, looked like they wanted to say something, but Blue spoke up before they could. “HELLO PRINCE JET AND SMALL HUMANS. WE DIDN’T GET IN YOUR WAY, DID WE?” Glancing over at Blue, you noticed how his gaze moved between you and the children. It was like he was trying to figure out the connection that shouldn’t be there.

“Jet wasn’t looking where he was going,” Pak cut in before anyone else could do anything.

Blue gaze a small nod. “I SEE. WELL, YOUR HIGHNESS, YOU MIGHT WANT TO KEEP TRACK OF THAT BETTER FROM NOW ON.” His gaze and attention seemed to be on just Jet as he spoke.

As he was distracted with talking to the prince, Pak came over and tugged on your hand. You gave them a confused look, and they motioned for you to get closer. Curious, you bent over to see what they wanted. “You aren’t in trouble again, right? I saw Edge earlier, and we can find him again if you need.” A smile grew on your face at their thoughtfulness and you shook your head. They didn’t seem to sure about your response though as they turned to eye Blue, along with Alph and Dyne who were standing not far away, seeming amused by Blue talking Jet’s ear off about the importance of looking where he was going and other safety things he should be aware of.

With a snap of your fingers, you got their attention again. This time you smiled as you quickly signed,  _ “Blue safe.” _ Pak paused for a long moment to stare at you with narrowed eyes, but sighed and nodded.

“If you say so,” they mumbled while going over to Lune and an embarrassed looking Jet.

Deciding to help save the prince from the lecture that didn’t seem to have an end, you walked over and grabbed Blue’s hand. He barely seemed to notice until you gave a gentle tug down the path towards where the other two from your group were still watching everything go down. He blinked and looked at you while pausing mid sentence. A smile on your face, you tilted your head towards Alph and Dyne. “ALRIGHT. WELL SINCE I HAVE OTHER THINGS TO BE DOING, I WILL LET YOU GO BACK TO YOUR PLAYING. TRY TO BE MORE CAREFUL NEXT TIME THOUGH. HAVE FUN.” He waved them off while he returned the grip on your hand. “NOW. LET’S GO FIND THE PERFECT PICNIC SPOT!” He sported a wide grin as he proudly marched along, his grip on your hand keeping you following along a lot closer than you’d been before. Alph and Dyne snickered quietly, though you paid them no mind. They could go be off in their own little world if they wanted. Right now, you were doing okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, that month flew by faster than I expected. So much has happened since I last updated it feels like. From the last chapter of Bendy and the Ink Machine coming out, to the latest Mystery Skulls Animated video, to Stan Lee dying, and all that crazy news relating to Pokemon, it's been kind of crazy. Of course, let's not forget Deltarune coming out and CQ going over what the rest of the story for Ask Error would have been. If that wasn't enough things to be distracting when it comes to what to right - though Deltarune and the Ask Error story definitely filled me with ideas and motivation to try and work around all of that other stuff - I had some stuff happen to me that made writing a bit hard. I was supposed to be part of a concert while in the alumni choir for the anniversary of this choir I sang in when I was little, but I ended up having to skip out on that due to a migraine that's likely linked to the other crazy thing that happened to me. I had been horseback riding when the horse I was on had decided to run downhill and I started to fall off, so I bailed before I could fall in front of the horse or under it and get hurt. Luckily I was wearing a helmet because I landed right on my head before rolling down the hill a bit. I'm mostly better now beyond the occasional migraine or headache, but yeah, this last month's been kind of crazy.  
> I tried to make this chapter a bit longer to make up for the long gap, but I don't know how well I did. At least I got something out, and I've got some fun plans for future chapters too. Can't believe the next one will be chapter 30, or that it's almost been a year since I posted the first chapter. Time sure flies.  
> Anyway, feel free to hang out in the comments or over on [my tumblr.](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/) Until next time guys.~


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Surprises around every corner.

Grass was such a strange thing, but that wasn’t going to get you to move from where you were splayed out next to the picnic blanket. The sky was too pretty to want to move. It was peaceful, the laughter of children in the distance and the songs of birds just adding to this warm feeling sitting inside of you. After helping set everything up, Blue laid down next to you and the two of you just watched the sky together for a bit. Alph and Dyne looked to be cuddling together on the blanket from what you could see out of the corner of your eyes. If they were happy, then you wouldn’t bother them. Besides, the sky was much more interesting. The purpose of pointing out clouds and what they looked like to keep engaged with the sky watching was strange, but Blue seemed to be having fun with it and maybe he just needed it to focus the energy he always seemed to have bubbling through him.

Lunch was interesting. The food was great, though you still weren’t exactly being picky about food since you at least got some. “Isn’t it better for humans to eat food without magic in it?” Dyne was looking at you with a tilted head before she turned her head to Blue for an answer. You wrinkled your nose at the thought of eating food that would go right through you like that and heard Alph snicker. Glancing over at her with a raised eyebrow, she just grinned right back at you.

“WELL, WE WEREN’T EXACTLY SURE WHEN WE FIRST GOT HER, AND SHE SEEMS TO RESPOND BETTER TO FOOD WITH MAGIC IN IT. ESPECIALLY THAT OF HIGHER MAGIC CONTENT. SHE MIGHT’VE BEEN FED A LOT OF IT AND SO SHE’S MORE INCLINED TO EATING IT NOW.” Blue went over his words carefully as he seemed to think over what he was saying as he went. Dyne had this look in her eyes as she listened and nodded along.

Alph smirked a little wider with a teasing hint to her grin and you watched her curiously while continuing to slowly work on your sandwich. “At least you don’t have to clean up any messes.” Your nose wrinkled again, and you could only imagine the face Blue was making as Dyne joined you in a disgusted look while Alph burst out into a guffaw. At least somebody was amused. On the other hand, you weren’t even sure you wanted to finish this sandwich anymore. Of course you were going to since you were not about to let any good food go to waste, but still. What an unsightly thing to talk about during a meal. Plus, you were self sufficient enough that no skeleton would likely ever even know should any “messes” be made. Okay it was time to move on from this gross topic.

Just a third of your current sandwich remained when you couldn’t ignore Dyne’s staring anymore. Did she have another question about you? She’d been asking Blue plenty of them between his back and forth with Alph over her needing to apologize to the food for talking about vile topics in front of it.

“Blue?” Both Alph and Blue went silent for a moment. “Can I have your human sit on my lap?” You paused, moving only to swallow the bite you had, as you felt apprehension flooding your bones. Sitting in someone’s lap gave them the potential for a lot of control over you.

A hand touched your arm and you startled slightly. Glancing over, Blue’s worried gaze caught your own. “You don’t have to do anything you’re not comfortable with.” That reassurance was nice, but Dyne had been nothing but kind so far and you didn’t want to upset her. Slowly, you stood. Dyne’s excited face calmed your nerves a little. It was too much the look of innocent excitement to set your fears ablaze.

Given how excited she seemed, you felt a little bad when the most you did was sit down next to her. While she looked a little saddened by you not going into her lap, she brightened up again quickly. With caution one might used around a frightened animal, she slowly moved an arm around you to pull you closer to her side. When you pulled your knees up it was actually quite comfortable. A nice place to continue to nibble on your sandwich. From this angle you could watch both Alph and Blue.

It was from the comfort of that cuddling position that you watched Blue answer his phone while finishing your sandwich. Dyne tried to pass you another as you watch Blue’s face start as confusion before shifting into something darker. That look alone had you shivering and pressing into Dyne’s side a little while you were torn between getting away in case he lashed out, and moving over worriedly to see what was wrong. Despite knowing he would never purposefully hurt you, monsters that held looks like that weren’t exactly ones you’d had good experiences with.

After he hung up, there was a moment of silence. “Everything alright there Blueberry?” Alph pushed, though even she sounded a tad cautious.

Your skeletal group member blinked before his face brightened right back up again. “YES, EVERYTHING’S FINE. SANS WAS JUST CALLING ME TO SAY THAT THINGS WERE A BIT HECTIC AT HOME RIGHT NOW SO THAT IT WOULD PROBABLY BE BEST TO STAY OUT FOR A WHILE.” An uncomfortable feeling still sat along your spine, but you couldn’t shake it.

Alph pushed herself so she could reach out and grab Blue in a headlock. “Looks like you’re spending more time with us, huh?” She laughed as she began to give Blue a noogie and he cried out between barely contained giggles while wiggling around to try and escape her grasp. Dyne’s giggles weren’t audible, but you could feel the way that her body shook with laughter.

One skeleton escape later, and Blue was gasping as stars sparkled in his sockets. “WE SHOULD HAVE A SLEEPOVER!! WE CAN COOK, AND WATCH THOSE SHOWS YOU LIKE, AND HAVE LOTS OF FUN!!”

“Hell yeah!” Alph grinned over at Dyne. Blue followed suit and gave her his best puppy dog eyes.

“Well…” she started, “We do have the next couple of days off, so a night spent with one of our favourite skeletons and his human could be a fun way to end the first day.” She cuddled you a bit closer and you could feel the warm fuzz of some kind of good intent buzzing off of her scales and across your skin. It had you snuggling into her some more with how soothing it felt as the intent reached your soul.

With that settled, the picnic delved into other seemingly random topics. Blue didn’t get that dark look back as far as you could tell. All around, the feelings you were getting were warm and comfortable.

 

You weren’t sure what to expect when the others had all talked about going to a place called Muffy’s. To say you were excited once you saw the restaurant where you seated yourself would be an understatement. Especially once you saw the small spider monsters scurrying around inside. They were all around the size of your palm, if not bigger and super fluffy.

Blue had known a shorter route to take to get to the place, which apparently Alph and Dyne did not, so for now it was just the two of you. Both of you went inside to wait and maybe snag a table for yourselves. The interior was a mix of fancy and homey somehow and you loved it. You were so busy taking in the sights that you completely missed the orange sweater on one of the bar stools at a section of the counter. Blue didn’t though, and quickly drew your attention to it as he stormed over with a loud, “PAPY!” With a tilt of your head you moved to follow.

In a feat of strength that you probably should have seen coming, Blue managed to pull his brother right off of the stool he was seated on. For a moment you were worried that Stretch was going to hit the floor, but Blue would never risk his brother’s health like that. He caught the taller skeleton flawlessly before standing him back up and started to pull him towards the door. This was likely to cause less of a scene, and you started to move as you prepared to drift after them, but Blue locked eyes with you in a way that had you freezing. “GO TAKE MY BROTHER’S STOOL WHILE YOU WAIT FOR ME, HE WON’T BE NEEDING IT ANYMORE.” The order was clear. You bowed your head and trudged back to the seat. You gave it a side eye before getting on once you were sure there hadn’t somehow been a gag of some kind left upon it for the next soul to accidentally trigger. Thankfully, it was safe.

Eyes from curious souls burned into you from all angles and you had to stop yourself from looking back. They were all just curious about the change and they’d grow bored soon enough. That’s what you kept telling yourself as you looked at the counter space in front of you. A cup was sitting there that must have belonged to Stretch. Curious, you pulled it closer so you could lean down and sniff at it. Your nose twitched at the sweet smelling mead. That made too much sense given the straight honey you’d seen the skeleton drinking before. With the knowledge of the fact Stretch had been drinking what was essentially alcoholic honey, you pushed the glass away. Honey wasn’t the most common thing where you came from, but a warm mead was often enjoyed during special events so there always seemed to be some kind of mead around during those times. Brewed in house since getting it from the outside world was near impossible unless some was just abandoned for somebody to find later, but the likelihood of that was next to none.

Spiders ranging from sizes that would fit in your palm to ones whose bodies alone were the size of your closed fist scuttled in front of you to reclaim the cup you had pushed away. A small team of them wandered away with the partially filled glass carefully. Others that had followed them up approached you slowly and a smile spread on your face at the fluff balls with legs. Careful not to hit any of them, you lifted your hands up onto the counter for them to inspect. Once they noticed you weren’t going to freak out, they approached curiously.

Their legs tickled as a few climbed onto you and you found yourself giggling. The spiders still touching the skin at your hands had mystified magic radiating off of them that you could feel through the direct contact. It had you smiling as you watched some of the smaller ones running up and down your sleeves, though their black colour on your black jacket made it a bit more difficult to see them. A few larger one even joined, but they were slow and cautious. Whether they were like that because they were unsure if they’d fall off or if they were unsure if you’d suddenly react negatively, you couldn’t be sure. Their curious magic and gentle weight was comforting in a way and you found yourself relaxing a bit more despite being alone in a place full of strangers. Without thinking much about it, you let soothing magic travel along the surface of your skin to easy the more wary of the spiders that were touching your hands. Small legs waved about in surprise and you found yourself giggling quietly.

Gentle laughter from right across the counter top caused you to startle, but you clamped down on your physical reaction as much as possible to avoid jostling the spiders too much. “My my, you’re quite the surprise.” Letting your gaze move to the owner of the voice, you found yourself meeting the gaze of five eyes with your own. The attention didn’t linger on you long as the owner then looked past you at something. A few spiders happily ran over to the new monster two let out a hum. Their mouth pulled into a smile and small fangs were easily noticeable, though they didn’t scare you any. A monster’s appearance was never what to fear. “So you’ve been what’s changed recently, have you?” You tilted your head at the question and turned to see if you could understand what would make this monsters ask that of you. Outside Blue and Stretch seemed to be talking, though Stretch was swaying on his feet. A frown tugged at your lips at his state, but you had no control over that. Hopefully he’d stay away though, because you’d rather not deal with any drunk monsters.

Realizing that the monster on the other side of the bar was still waiting for an answer, you nodded your head. If they were referring to the skeletons then you were definitely a recent change. As weird as it felt to think of it being just over a week. “I see.” Turning to look back at the monster, their eyes were on you. A few of them at least. “It’s nice to see my best patron with purpose and just happier lately. I thought he’d be happier once I noticed we had the sky, but it’s like nobody noticed the change.” You froze at that comment. They knew of an existence different than this one? You thought you were the only one to remember anything from their native home, beyond maybe those from your own universe, but you’d all had a unique situation. Rather than say anything at your change in behaviour, the monster behind the counter simply gave you a knowing look before redirecting their gaze as the chiming of the bells at the door signaled it being used.

Even as Blue came back with Alph and Dyne, you’d felt somewhat tense. Blue had noticed and asked you about it, but you’d waved him off and tried your best to stop showing it. The monster’s knowing smile could mean a hundred different things and you weren’t prepared for any of them. They didn’t seem inclined to do anything which you couldn’t tell was better or worse. They could be waiting to spill things for all you knew. You wanted to trust that they wouldn’t, but you could never be too cautious.

Muffy, as you learned the monster was named, apparently originated from the same kingdom as the monsters you were with. She was rather quiet, but that didn’t hinder anything. She seemed to already know what everybody else would want, so she decided to pick a menu item you would like as well. It was strange having food served before you when nobody had ordered, but your monster companions didn’t seem to even notice. The croissant sandwich looked interested, and tasted better than you expected. Who knew croissants could be used for such delicious sandwiches?

 

The bell chimed behind your group as you left the cafe. No stars were out yet in the dimming sky, and the street seemed to be mostly empty as you walked along to where you’d parked. You hugged your jacket tighter to yourself as you let the monsters in front of you talk excitedly about what they would do once you arrived at Alph and Dyne’s house. Seems they had some series they’d been watching together that they wanted to catch up on since it’d been a while.

While the three paused on the sidewalk to finish their thoughts before separating to their vehicles, you shifted from foot to foot and looked out around the streets. That’s when you noticed a pair who had just turned the corner onto the road you were on to walk on the other side of the street. Disbelief gripped your soul as you shifted away from the others a bit to get a better glance. A stupid smile was quick to from on your face as the pair seemed to notice you and froze.

Throwing all caution to the wind, you bolted across the road towards the pair. A loud overjoyed cry came from the taller which only spurred you faster. It was a good thing there was no traffic out at the moment. There was little doubt in your mind as to who you’d finally been reunited with. After all, how could you forget that stupid tie dyed shirt, or that scarf you’d worked on for hours?

Arms wrapped around you tightly and you let yourself cling to the owners too. Tears bubbled up in your eyes as you basked in the familiarity and warmth. “hey. we m _ sis _ sed you.” That drew a watery snort from you which only caused a few more puffs of laugh to join it.

“Pap,” you muttered. “Sass.” That seemed to only cause the arms around you to grow tighter, but you really didn’t care. This was real. This was real and they were here. Your eyes were waterfalls at this point and you didn’t much mind, because if the trembling was anything to go by, they both probably were too.

“y’really gonna call me that? even after all this time?” There was a playful lilt to the slightly watery laughter that came from your older brother. Instead of giving him a proper response, you pulled back to stick your tongue out at him. That only got you more chuckles, which helped soothe any fears that were trying to creep in from being so closely tangled with monsters. These were your brothers. They’d never hurt you.

“Instead your turned your attention to the size differences between you all that had changed since you’d last seen each other. “Wow Rus, you’ve grown!” Your voice was a bit hoarse and you had to clear your throat after speaking to try and get a bit more comfortable. Of course, after living with the other skeletons, you’d kind of expected the size difference, but it was still strange to see for yourself.

“at least you didn’t go from tallest to shortest.” A teasing grin came on your face as you leaned towards your older brother.

That was when Rus finally spoke up, with a comment that had you freeze. “Where’s your necklace?” That had your older brother tensing. He eyed you critically and you shrunk beneath that gaze you knew all too well. Protective mode activate.

“HUMAN?” Blue’s voice sounded worried and unsure from behind you.

You were moved into Papyrus’s arms - having two Papyruses and Sanses around was going to get confusing, maybe you should refer to your brothers by nicknames - and he picked you up with an ease you probably should have expected, but somehow didn’t. Sass put himself between you and Pap, and the trio of monsters you’d been with before.

Blue was standing there in a position like he was trying hard not to fiddle with his gloves in a nervous tick. Dyne was standing at the very back of the group nervously hunched over as well, a phone in her hands that was likely to be able to call the guards if she thought it was needed. The only one that looked super confident in themselves beyond your older brother was Alph, her gaze was dark as it was aimed at your brothers. A shudder shook you and that didn’t seem to go unnoticed by anyone. As much as you didn’t want to watch this confrontation, you couldn’t look away as you felt you had to see this. Didn’t mean you couldn’t snuggle into your brother as you looked out at the other monsters. Suddenly you were a lot more glad that there weren’t many monsters here. Razz, Hickory, and Edge being absent was probably also a good thing as you didn’t even want to know how that would go down.

Alph puffed up her chest as she continued to glare at your brothers. “Return the human, now!” she demanded.

“How about no?” Sass bit out in a way that had you knowing thing could go very wrong here, very fast. A bit of panic crawled into your soul and you squirmed a bit in Pap’s hold. You had to do something to defuse this situation. “I have a few questions you could answer for me though.”

“If you don’t return that human, then I will be forced to take her from you and take you in for kidnapping.” Alph had this righteous fury in her gaze that burned brightly.

Thank the stars Pap was here to bring about some common sense. “HOW COULD WE KIDNAP OUR OWN SISTER?” That quickly brought the trio down at the least. Hopefully Sans wouldn’t go looking for a fight in the name of protecting your honour or whatever else he’d call it.

“SISTER??” Blue’s eye lights, while smaller than usual, were darting back and forth between you and your brothers.

Alph seemed just as confused. “How in the world could you even consider a human your sister???” Luckily, it seemed that in the background, Dyne had lowered her phone and seemed much less intent on using it as she seemed to be studying you and your brothers with curious eyes.

Sans huffed. “What’s it matter to you? Just tell us where her necklace is and we’ll be off.”

“THE HUMAN HASN’T HAD A NECKLACE FOR A LONG AS I’VE KNOWN HER, AND SHE JUST MET ALPH AND DYNE TODAY.” Blue raised placating hands. Sans didn’t seem convinced, but Papyrus looked down at you curiously. You nodded to let him know that what Blue was saying was true.

He looked up at the others. “YOU TREATED HER WELL, RIGHT?”

“OF COURSE!!” Blue sounded almost offended that anyone would assume anything else. “SHE’S BEEN KIND OF QUIET AND RESERVED, AND SHE DOESN’T REALLY GO OFF ON HER OWN A LOT LIKE SHE DID TO GO TO YOU, BUT EVERYONE BACK HOME HAS BEEN DOING OUR BEST TO TAKE CARE OF HER!! But… um… It is alright that we fed her monster food, right?”

“i’d be more worried if you didn’t.” You relaxed a little at Sans at least sounding a bit more friendly.

A noise of agreement left your throat. “Human food is weird.” Only Pap heard you, but his laughter was well worth even just that much.

Blue shifted from foot to foot as he looked around at everyone with uncertainty. “WELL… WE WERE GOING TO GO FOR A SLEEPOVER AT ALPH AND DYNE’S PLACE TONIGHT, SO MAYBE YOU COULD JOIN US?” He turned with starry eye lights towards the owners of the home.

The lizard huffed. “I suppose it would let us keep a better eye on them. Though only if Dyne’s okay with it.” Her arms crossed over her chest in a defensive manner as her strong gaze didn’t let up.

All attention and decision making now on her, Dyne curled into herself a bit more. “I-I suppose they could come… Though we might have to find a new series to watch… o-or a movie instead.”

“GREAT!!” Blue was beaming. Personally, you were glad that things had settled rather peacefully and that you could stay with your brothers. “ONLY THE HUMAN AND I WILL FIT ON MY MOTORBIKE THOUGH, SO YOU TWO ARE GOING TO HAVE TO RIDE IN THE CAR. DON’T WORRY, ALPH IS A PERFECTLY SAFE DRIVER!! Whenshe’scalmthatis.” You barely caught the quick mumbling at the end, but it didn’t instill confidence in you even if you couldn’t properly understand it. Still though, there was nothing you could do about it. Adding yourself into the car would leave Blue alone and would probably end up causing the vehicle to feel crowded anyway.

 

Getting along thankfully wasn’t seeming like it was too hard of a thing for any of the monsters around you to do, but your brothers trying to explain things was a bit of a mess. Squished on a couch between the two you’d watched all of them try to sort things out. Dyne seemed more intrigued by the idea of a sentient human mumbling about it being something out of some book of hers, and Alph was understandably a bit more cautious with the whole idea. Neither of your brothers went into too much detail about many things beyond growing up in a small town that got a lot of snow you’d all play in along with how you’d been adopted at a young age into the family which also lead to your father feeling a bit protective over you with how you’d been so different from everyone else.

Blue was eerily quiet for most of the talk and you couldn’t read the expressions on his face very well. Alph was definitely the driving force from the monsters who were learning a bit more, though even Dyne chipped in more than Blue. It worried you. However your mind was occupied by others things with Dyne eventually wanting proof of your sentience and ability to talk.

“Does she really understand everything we’re saying and not just the basic commands humans are taught? Like, she can converse with you on all sorts of topics?” She had this look in her eye that you recognized well. One of pursuing knowledge in a field of interest that just got a whole heap of new evidence to sort through. That eager want to learn something interesting.

You tilted your head. “Depends what you want to talk about,” you murmured finally. “I learned a lot of things from all sorts of monsters growing up. Magic theory is a pretty interesting subject, and definitely helps me understand how a lot of things around me work.”

You could have sworn Dyne looked like she was going to explode with questions after hearing that. Not ready to deal with that, you sunk back into the couch and leaned into Pap since his taller form could hide you easier. Alph, for her part, was frozen as she stared open mouthed at you. Blue on the other hand continued to have that unreadable face.

It wasn’t until much later, when you were all getting ready to head off to bed that he finally spoke up about something you wish he’d have said much sooner. “Would any of you happen to know about strings? Sans mentioned them during that call earlier and I’ve been trying to figure it out, but I just don’t get it. He said somebody else would understand though?” Your grip on your older brother tightened as you felt dread creeping up in your soul. If that was in relation to the news which should have been on around that time, then that meant Error was likely either repeating his actions, or he was still active. It was probably a good idea to check tomorrow to make sure the repeat idea wasn’t happening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise~  
> I've been toying around with it for a while, and I thought the 30th chapter was the perfect time to bring in Sunna's brothers. Pretty sure a bunch of you were expecting this sort of thing. Just another version of the skeleton brothers.  
> Speaking of surprises, tumblr's announcement earlier this month was quite the surprise. I don't plan on leaving the platform, but even if I did for whatever reason, I'd still be easily found here. Still, if any of you do want to contact me on [my tumblr](https://skaliciascribbles.tumblr.com/) for whatever reason, or still want to go back and look at those side stories that are on it, it will still be there for as long as possible. I could always also make a separate book for side stories for this one, both canon and any I'll write that might end up not being canon as well.  
> While I might not be planning on leaving tumblr, I will be unreachable there during the log off protest that's been planned for the 17th. While this story isn't sexual in nature and there's definitely nothing on tumblr that I've posted that is such, there are plenty of more mature or 'adult' themes in this story even if they're not the focus. Tumblr may say they want a safe space, but they're also going to severely limit people's creativity along with breaking up safe spaces for people who are victims of certain kinds of trauma and whatnot that will still be targeted by the filter. Not like the filters have been doing a good job or seem reliable enough for this sort of thing. Tumblr isn't really a sight for children, but even then, they have measures already which have been doing a good job of keeping the more sensitive or 'adult' content away from those under 18. Enough of me ranting on that though, since I'm sure you've all heard plenty by now.  
> I'll see you guys next time though. We've got some interesting times coming up with Sunna's brothers now in the picture.


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